


Winter Shall Howl at the Walls

by jwdish98



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, American Politics, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Fluff and Angst, Gay Bucky Barnes, M/M, Minor Bucky Barnes/Alexander Pierce, Minor Sam Wilson/Maria Hill, Mutual Pining, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes, Prostitution, Sam Wilson is So Done, Steve and Bucky flirt a lot, and awkward, and then pretend they're not flirting, it's cute
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-03 18:27:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 51,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8725519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jwdish98/pseuds/jwdish98
Summary: Steve Rogers is the son of deceased former American President Joseph G. Rogers and current American President Sarah Rogers. His step-father, Harold Barton, is a well respected long-time senator, and his step-brother Clint is the White House's Chief of Staff, even though he seems to prefer practicing archery more than actually pursuing his political career. The world expects Steve to follow in the footsteps of his family members, but he's fairly certain the last thing he wants to spend the rest of his life doing is politics.However, when Steve’s life becomes intertwined with that of James “Bucky” Barnes-- the son of a Romanian mother and a Russian father, a mysterious man with questionable motives who just so happens to be engaged to a Senator who’s twice his age-- every carefully structured element of Steve's life starts to fall apart.





	1. Starry Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, all! 
> 
> I know it’s been awhile since I’ve posted a fic, but I’ve spent the past few months getting settled in at college, so life’s been pretty busy for me. However, I’m back now and I’m super excited to be posting this fic. I actually just wrote it for NaNoWriMo and I really enjoyed writing it. It was my first NaNo and I totally had a blast. I’m also super excited to be posting my first stucky fic. I absolutely adore stucky, and I’ve been writing random things surrounding them for the past few months, but this fic is the first one I’ve actually finished. I procrastinate a lot. Whoops.
> 
> Also, just a quick warning to everyone-- later on in this fic there’s talk of a sixteen-year-old having sex with men much older than them. As it doesn’t really happen within this fic, and because of the fact that it happened in a country where the legal age of consent is fifteen, I didn’t put an “underage” warning tag on this fic. I’m so sorry if this makes anyone feel uncomfortable, but I didn’t really think it was necessary to tag it.
> 
> I'm usually pretty inconsistent with my fic posting, but as this fic is almost completely done, I'm going to try to post a chapter every single week. Next week's update might be moved to Friday or Saturday, though.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading my fic, and I hope you enjoy!

There were a lot of articles about the current First Son Steve Rogers floating around on the internet.

Steve himself was well aware of this fact, even if he often didn’t let himself investigate them. At the beginning of his father’s presidency-- back when Steve hadn’t understood what the gravity of moving into the White House meant, other than that he was leaving Brooklyn-- Steve hadn’t much minded the media and their fascination with his family. In fact, he had been just a bit fascinated by it all, even if he hadn’t had a true grasp on what _fame_ really was, back then.

However, the illusion of being somewhat famous-- if there had ever truly been any-- had quickly faded when it seemed that all the media ever wanted to talk about was sickly Steve Rogers and how it would affect the President if his son were to pass away-- _would the President be able to handle his grief? How would he manage it?_

There were some days now, even ten years later, that Steve could still hear news reporters betting on his life in his head.

_(Can you imagine being in a position like that, Jan? How difficult it must be to watch someone you love so much wither away and still have to run a country?_

_No, I really can’t, Thomas. I can’t even begin to imagine what President Rogers is going through.)_

Steve had always figured there was some horrible irony in the fact that the year he finally started becoming healthier was the year that his father passed away.

The reporters hadn’t seemed to know what to do about that.

During the years in between his father’s last year as President and his mother’s first, the articles had diminished to very few, besides the occasional article that had been full-blown reports about a bar fight that Steve may or may not have been involved in.

The reprieve from the media attention hadn’t really brought about much change in Steve’s life, but, at the very least, it had ensured that he wasn’t forcibly outed and instead had allowed for him to come out in his own time, after having a few years of being a teenager to understand what exactly it meant for him to be bisexual.

Now that his mother was in the White House and Steve was no longer a minor, his life was fair game for any and all media outlets. Which was a fact that almost every media outlet had taken full advantage of.

Steve had spent the last two years of his life trying to avoid the looks he knew people were giving him when they thought he wasn’t looking. It didn’t really help that most of the articles were total bullshit, anyways. There was a reason he had spent his entire life avoiding them as much as possible.

That was, of course, until he became friends with Sam Wilson.

“Steve. Bro, this article says that you're one of the best catches alive right now.”

Steve risked a glance up from his sketchbook to find Sam grinning at him over the top of his laptop. He looked far too happy with himself. Steve cleared his throat and bounced the eraser of his pencil nervously against the table.

“I’m sorry, what?” He asked, wrinkling his nose.

“This article,” Sam repeated, “says you’re one of the top catches of the year, man. There's a whole list and everything. A poll. It looks _very_ professional.”

Sam looked far too proud of himself, and Steve might have wanted to take his ego down a peg or two if he didn’t happen to be one of Steve’s best friends ever. One of Steve’s only friends ever, really. Besides, Sam was a great guy. When he wasn’t being an asshole.

So Steve just leveled Sam with an unimpressed look and returned to his reading. He had too much homework to procrastinate on, anyways. He’d much rather focus on his sketching than on whatever click bait article Sam had found today.

Apparently, though, that hadn’t been the reaction that Sam had wanted to get out of him, because he cleared his throat, tapping his pen against Steve’s homework and staining the top of it with purple ink in the process.

Steve whined low in his throat, pouting up at Sam. “Aw, come on, man.”

“His best feature,” Sam said easily, “are those blue eyes that would make any lady swoon. But don't worry, gentlemen, he’s bisexual too, so you have just as much of a chance as the rest of us.”

Steve frowned. He tried to set his pencil down gently, but kind of ended up stabbing himself in the hand with it. The pained face he made only partially had to do with the graphite-shaped mark in his hand. “There’s no way it says that.”

Sam whirled his computer around without any preamble, a wicked grin on his face. “Read it and weep, Rogers.”

After giving the article a cursory glance over, Steve did the only appropriate thing he could do, which was bury his head in his hands and give a long-suffering sigh. It helped him feel better. A little bit, at least.

“Why do you even read those?” Steve asked. “They’re total bullshit.”

The grin that crossed Sam’s face spelled _trouble_ , and Steve felt his shoulders slump as Sam said, “so does that mean you don’t think you’re a catch, Rogers?”

Steve shifted in his chair under the guise of trying to get comfortable, but mostly because he couldn’t stand Sam’s meddling.

“I thought politicians weren’t supposed to make good significant others,” Steve pointed out after a few seconds of silence.

The words had the opposite of his desired effect, however, considering they only made Sam stare harder at him. Sam’s eyes were doing that _are you fucking kidding me, Steve_ thing that they always did when Steve was about to get a lecture, and Steve heard himself groan more than actually processed it.

Sam was about to lecture him. In the library. Which was sure to draw plenty of stares and dirty looks. And probably some weirdo with a camera phone.

Maybe tomorrow the click bait article of the day would be entitled: _Watch Steve Rogers get Lectured by a Total Hottie (A Possible_ Boyfriend _?) in a Library._

Steve sunk a bit lower in his chair.

“Steve,” Sam said. His voice held no room for argument, so Steve forced himself to look up, trying his best to hold back his wince.

“Yeah, Sam?”

Sam sighed. “I thought you said you were going to talk to your Mom about switching majors.”

Sam’s eyes held him place, and Steve squirmed in his seat, feeling a little useless and a lot awkward. Instead of answering, he ran his hands across the sketch that he’d left in front of him, blurring some of the lines and getting graphite all over the side of his hand.

“ _Steve_.”

Maybe it was the tone of exasperation or the twinge of sadness in Sam’s voice that finally got Steve to glance up at his friend, but when he did the knot of guilt in his stomach worsened.

“I know I said I would,” Steve said. He twitched his shoulders in another shrug. “But, um. I don’t know. She’s really busy, Sam. I mean... She’s the _President_ , you know. And she’s already planning everything for her campaign for re-running and I... It just doesn’t seem like the right time to bring it up, you know?”

It was the most pointless excuse Steve had ever given, of course, but Steve had never been able to find the words to explain the real reason behind why he had yet to stop taking political science classes, even though he couldn’t stand them.

Sam rolled his eyes.

Steve probably should have been offended, but he figured he kind of deserved it.

“I don’t think there’s ever going to be a _right_ time, Steve. You can’t just keep pushing it off. If you do then you’ll end up making up excuses until it’s too late to go back and then you’ll be stuck with a degree that’s only going to take you places in life you don’t want to go.”

A cold feeling was clutching at Steve’s chest and he hunched his shoulders inward in a pathetic attempt to ward it off. It wouldn’t work, he was well aware of that, but Steve had spent the majority of his life fighting off far worse things than an ugly feeling clawing its way through his stomach and up his throat. He wouldn’t be Steve Rogers if he didn’t at least try to fight the feeling, really.

“I--” Steve huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. He probably looked like a child throwing a temper tantrum, but Sam at least had the tact to not bring that up. “It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if I went into politics, okay?”

Sam scoffed. “For the rest of the world? No. But for you? Steve, come on. You know that you’d be miserable if you had to be a politician for the rest of your life.”

They were getting weird looks now. Steve knew it. He could feel the eyes on him as if they were trying to stare into his soul, and all he tensed up his shoulders in response, silently begging everyone to leave him alone.

“Sam,” Steve whispered. “Not here. Please.”

Sam took a deep breath and held it in for what seemed like an eternity, his eyes narrowing as he watched Steve with a dark, considering look.

“Fine,” Sam finally agreed. “Not here. Okay. But don’t think you’re getting out of this, Steve. I’m _going_ to bring it up again.”

Steve laughed, a wry grin tugging his lips upwards. “Yeah. You wouldn’t be my friend if you weren’t just as stubborn as me.”

Sam grinned back at him, looking more amused than he likely should. Still, Sam was used to Steve being far more stubborn than the average human being, by now. For some reason, he still seemed to find it amusing. “Damn right. You’re a pain in the ass to be friends with, Rogers.”

That probably should have offended him, but Steve just felt his lips wanting to twitch upwards. He folded them inwards to stop himself from laughing. “There’s no need for you to be rude about it, you know.”

“Don’t you dare start telling me what to do now, Rogers.”

Steve rolled his eyes and balled up a blank sheet of paper on the table in front of him just so he could throw it at Sam. Because Steve Rogers, whether or not he wanted to admit it, kind of had the maturity of a five-year-old.

Sam swatted the paper away, glowering at Steve. Steve bit down his bottom lip to stop himself from bursting into a laughter. They were in the library, after all. That would be impolite. And Steve Rogers was all about doing everything in the politest way possible. Obviously.

“Oh, shit,” Sam blurted out. Steve arched an eyebrow, but Sam just frowned and started shoving his books in his backpack. His voice took on a whining quality as he added, “I didn’t realize it was four already. I’m going to be late for work.”

Steve blinked slowly, only half processing Sam’s wild flurry of movement, but he nodded nonetheless. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

The question drew Sam’s attention away from his phone, and he turned a bright smile in Steve’s direction. “Yeah, of course. Are we getting coffee and then coming here, or were we just going to meet up here again?”

“Um.” Steve shrugged. “Coffee, probably.”

If he was going to study for hours tomorrow-- like he sorely needed to, considering he’d done practically nothing today-- then he was going to need caffeine of some kind in him. There was no way he’d survive otherwise, surely.

Sam smiled, nodding as he slung his backpack over his shoulder. He wiggled his fingers in a strange approximation of a wave and said, “Sounds like a plan.”

“Bye, Sam,” Steve said easily. He returned his gaze to the sketchbook in front of him, attention focused back on his art.

However, he wasn’t focused enough to miss Sam’s farewell of, “bye, best catch.”

It really wasn’t that funny, but Steve let it slide anyways.

Steve pressed a button on his phone, watching as the screen lit up with the time. He still had half an hour before he was supposed to be home, but part of him didn’t really see the point in staying here and wasting his time. Glancing over his shoulder, Steve settled his eyes on Phil, a wry smile crossing his lips.

The man was up and by his side before Steve could process the fact that he had moved.

“Um. Hi, Phil.” Steve blinked a few times, grinning at his bodyguard. Secret service agent. Whatever they were supposed to be called. Then again, Steve had never really viewed Phil as someone who worked for him or anything. Phil had been looking after Steve for a majority of his life, after all, and Steve couldn’t even begin to imagine how frustrating that had to be.

He was well aware that he was a handful.

“Are you ready to go, Steve?”

“Uh.” Steve glanced back at the table, gathering his things into a neat stack to place in his bag. “Yeah, I think so. Thanks for hanging out here so long.”

Phil’s lips quirked upwards. “Well, it is my job.”

Steve felt himself blush a bit and he fidgeted nervously, rolling his eyes. “I know. You’ve been doing it for a very long time, Phil. Just, uh. Thanks, I guess.”

The words only seemed to exasperate Phil, even if he still looked vaguely amused. He was used to Steve acting weird by now.

Steve shoved his papers in his bag and grabbed his phone, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. He pushed his chair back in gently-- it squeaked against the ground, causing him to wince a bit, and a few people at surrounding tables turned to glance at him before going back to their work. He shifted self-consciously.

“Steve.” Phil’s voice drew Steve’s attention aware from the stares and back to his bodyguard. Phil, thankfully, looked amused, a quirk of laughter in his lips. “I don’t know how many times I have to keep telling you, but you don’t have to thank me. I’m well aware how much of a handful you are, _trust_ me, but you’re a good kid, Steve. You always have been.”

Steve scoffed, running a hand through his hair. “According to my mother, I was an awful toddler, and you definitely didn’t know me then.”

“Ah, well.” Phil chuckled. “I suppose I can’t argue with the President, can I?”

They reached the door and stepped outside into the afternoon sunshine. Steve felt the warmth of it in his bones, and it battled against some of the awkwardness that he felt bundled up in the center of his chest. At the very least, it gave him some room to breathe.

“Still,” Steve said, “I mean it, Phil. Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you around.”

Phil stopped, then, stilling just slightly, and gently grasped at Steve’s shoulders. “And you won’t ever have to find out, Steve.”

The words pinged inside of him, a bit of warmth passing through him all the way to his fingers. For a little while, all he could say was, “good.”

“Now.” Phil grinned, leading him towards the car that was waiting in the middle of the parking lot. “Let’s get you home before your mother starts to worry about you, yeah?”

“Yeah, we can’t have that, huh?”

As they reached the car, Phil winked at him and said, “well, it _is_ my job to keep the President happy,” before he ducked around the car to slide into the driver’s seat.

Steve wrinkled his nose, opening the passenger’s side door. “I thought it was your job to make sure I didn’t end up dead in a ditch somewhere because I don’t know when to not pick a fight with the assholes of the world.”

“Well.” Phil was grinning broadly now, and Steve bit down on his bottom lip to stop himself from laughing. “That too, kid.”

“You’re the worst.”

Phil reached and flicked his forehead. Steve rolled his eyes against the flicker of affection in his chest.

“Shut up and let me drive, Steve.”

 

_. . ._

 

Before Steve had even stepped two feet into the wing of the White House where his room was, a fake arrow came flying mere inches from his face and stuck to the wall directly by his head.

“Clint, what the fuck?” Steve blurted out.

His step-brother just grinned at him and wiggled his fingers in greeting. “What’s up, Steve?”

Steve arched an unimpressed eyebrow, his nose wrinkling. “Were you trying to kill me?”

“Oh, _come on_.” Clint scoffed, waving a hand around vaguely as he hopped down from his vantage point to retrieve his arrow. The end that was stuck to the wall-- some plunger-like-thing? Steve had decided not to ask about it a while ago-- made a squeaking noise as Clint removed it. “It’s not like it would’ve hurt you that badly. I’m not allowed to have real arrows in here, remember?”

Steve was well aware of that fact. The rule had been put in place after Clint had almost killed one of the staff members with a poorly-timed shot. The poor woman had managed to avoid an arrow to the face, but the vase behind her, sadly, had suffered a much grimmer fate.

Ever since then, there had been a strict _No Arrows in the White House_ policy.

The whole debacle had been extremely amusing, if only just for the looks that the secret service agents had given Clint for weeks afterward.

“I know that.” Steve shrugged. “Still. I don’t really appreciate having arrows fly right past my face, you know.”

Clint just shrugged. “You’re home early, pal.”

“I...” Steve paused. “Um. Do you usually practice shooting your fake arrows in my wing when I’m gone, then?”

Steve really didn’t know how to feel about that.

Clint didn’t even have the decency to look guilty or at all self-conscious as he admitted, “oh, yeah, all the time. That way nobody thinks it was my fault if I accidentally break something.”

A scandalized noise built in the back of Steve’s throat before he could stop it. _“Clint._ ”

Clint just cackled with laughter, waving his arrow around in Steve’s face.

“You’re such an asshole,” Steve shot back, fighting off the affectionate grin that he could feel tugging at his lips. The fondness for his step-brother was clawing itself up inside of him, and Steve couldn’t help but let it melt his exterior for a few moments.

Clint snorted. “Steve, you’ve known that about me since the first time we met and I told you we had to be best friends since we were going to be kind of related and you looked me right in the eye and told me that I had to start acting like a normal person if I wanted to be friends with you.”

An embarrassed flush heated up Steve’s cheeks before he could stop it.

“We promised that you wouldn’t hold the dumb things I said when I was a stubborn teenager against me,” Steve grumbled, pointing an accusing finger at Clint. The strap of his bag slid slowly down his shoulder, but Steve was busy making a fucking point, so he didn’t bother trying to adjust it. He would deal with it later.

Clint just arched an eyebrow at him. “You also promised me in return that you would let me shoot my arrows anywhere I wanted. If you betray me then I’m going to betray you, Steve.”

“I...” Steve made a face. “I don’t remember us ever making that promise, pal.”

For a second, Clint seemed to consider this, and then he narrowed his eyes, humming a bit.

“No, I think we definitely did.”

“I'm... I’m pretty sure we didn't.”

“No, we did.”

Steve rolled his eyes. There was no point in arguing with Clint. They were both too stubborn. They'd probably just run around in circles for hours before someone came and separated them or they both gave up and decided to spend their time doing something else.

“Whatever,” Steve said abruptly. Clint’s eyes turned a bit triumphant, and Steve wrinkled his nose in response, trying his best to fight off the pout that threatened to break free. Clint would only tease him more for that. “Don’t you have other things you should be doing?”

An amused grin twitched at Clint’s lips, his dark eyes were alight with laughter, and Steve felt himself sigh internally at the sight. “Like what, pal?”

“Um.” Steve scoffed. He shifted to glare at Clint, his shoes squeaking as they scraped against the newly polished floor. “I don’t know. Don’t you have a Natasha to go flirt with? Or even a job to do, Mr. Chief of Staff?”

Clint spluttered. “Natasha and I don’t flirt.”

Steve didn’t even need words to argue about that, so he just arched an eyebrow, staring blankly at Clint.

“We... We don’t flirt with _intent_ ,” Clint tried.

Steve didn’t even bother to move. His face still conveyed his point well enough.

“Fuck off, Steve,” Clint finally settled on saying. His face read _exasperated_ , but Steve could see the embarrassment in the way his shoulders kept shifting.

It was kind of amusing, and Steve couldn’t manage to fight off the grin that split across his lips.

“Sure thing, pal,” he agreed, patting Clint’s shoulder as he passed him. “Let me know when dinner’s ready, yeah?”

He slid past Clint and down the hallway to his room, ignoring Clint’s annoyed grumbling at his back. The polished floors glimmered at him, tempting him to take his shoes off and slide around them on his socks. Resisting the temptation, Steve moved into his bedroom, dumping his backpack on the bottom of his bed. After a few seconds of digging around in it, he grabbed one of his textbooks and his sketchbook before he headed up a floor, making his way out to the solarium.

It was a beautifully sunny day out, after all, and Steve wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to draw. The view from the solarium was usually interesting to draw anyways, and Steve didn’t particularly like feel spending his afternoon in the greenhouse today. It was always too stuffy in there.

His feet padded softly against the hallway.

Carefully, Steve slipped the door open and peered inside, looking around carefully.

The lighting at this time of day was actually rather good for what he had in mind. The room itself was awash with soft sunlight, looking beautifully inviting. The cream colored carpets countered with the soft blue of the walls, making the solarium itself seem lively even though it was rather empty.

There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the room at the moment, so Steve moved in easily, a bounce in his steps. Just as he turned around to settle down on the couch, Steve noticed a figure settled down on the farthest chair from the door and let out a highly embarrassing yelp.

“What the--”

“Oh!” The man rose a bit out of his seat, a sheepish smile on his face. “So sorry about that, Steve. I was so immersed in my novel that I didn’t even notice you come in. I promise I didn’t mean to scare you intentionally.”

Steve let out a long huff of air. “Shit. Yeah, okay. Hi, Harold.”

An amused smile glinted in his step-father’s eyes. “Hello to you too, Steve. Did you just get back from school?”

Steve nodded easily as he quickly hid his sketchbook and pencils in between his textbook and his chest. “Yeah,” he said easily. “Sam and I spent some time studying in the library, but I, uh, I still have a test on Monday, so I figured that I should study some more right now.”

Harold nodded sagely, a considerate look on his face. “That’s probably a good plan. Especially considering you likely won’t be able to study at all tomorrow evening.”

“Why won’t I--” Steve paused, his words cutting off. Slowly, his shoulders drooped. Fuck. Right. “Yeah. The... The gala. Right.”

The disgust in his words was probably obvious. Steve had never really been good at hiding what he was feeling. It wasn’t even that he _disliked_ galas, but having to spend his evening schmoozing political figures was never something that had really held any appeal to Steve.

And, yet, it seemed like that was what he was preparing to spend the rest of his life doing.

Harold’s chuckle caused Steve to look at him again. “I know you don’t enjoy them Steve, but don’t worry about it, alright? It probably won’t be too stuffy. It’s your mother’s birthday party, after all.”

“I know.” Steve swallowed a bit, settling himself awkwardly on the couch. Once he was in place, he quickly set his textbook down next to him, moving a pillow quickly to cover the sketchbook and pencils that were now lying out in the open. “I’m sure it’ll be a lot of fun. Ma always throws good parties.”

It sounded weak even to Steve’s ears because he could hear in the tone of his voice that he didn’t even believe himself. Not that his mother’s parties were ever _bad_ , of course they weren’t, but-- as she was the _President_ \-- she had to invite plenty of people out of nicety rather than having a party full of people that she actually viewed as friends and family.

“Are you enjoying your classes this year, Steve?” Harold asked. It was clear he didn’t know what else to say-- because, fuck, adults had no other go to question topic for anyone between the ages of fifteen and twenty-two other than _“are you enjoying school?”_ \-- and Steve shrugged.

He took a quick pause to grab his textbook and open it to the chapter they’d gone over in class, his nose scrunching up a bit. “It’s, uh, it’s going really well! I’m enjoying it a lot.”

_I’m not enjoying it at all. It fucking sucks, Harold._

“That’s good, Steve. I’m glad to hear that.”

_I’m sure you are._

Steve bit his tongue.

Clearing his throat a bit, Steve forced a smile on his face, trying his best to not look towards his sketchbook. Steve balled them up into fists and shoved them in his lap to stop himself from doing something stupid. “Well, uh. I’m going to get back to, er. Studying. So... Yeah.”

Harold chuckled again, but he picked up his book and nodded nonetheless. “Very well.”

They spent the next half an hour-- that felt like a fucking eternity to Steve, but he wasn’t about to admit that out loud-- with Harold casually reading and occasionally talking while Steve tried his hardest to pretend he was focusing on studying for his political science class by rereading a chapter on the constitution.

(Yeah, no thanks.)

Just as Steve was preparing to throw his textbook at the wall out of frustration, Clint came sliding into the room with that ever easy air about him, a stack of papers in his hand and his quiver of fake arrows still hanging off his shoulder. “Hey, dude,” he said. “Dad.”

Harold looked up from his book with that amused smile again. Steve just rolled his eyes. “What is it, Clint?”

“Oh! Uh, dinner is ready,” Clint said brightly. “Sarah wanted me to come get you two.”

Steve watched, quiet, as Harold pulled himself up from his seat, smiling at Clint and chattering away. For a split second, he missed his dad more than he could ever describe but he forced the thought away, shaking his head.

Clearing his throat to get the other two men’s attention, Steve waved his sketchbook around. “I’m going to go put this in my room and then I’ll be right there to join you all.”

Clint smiled brightly, shooting him two big thumbs-ups. Steve waited until the echoes of their voices had disappeared down the hallway before he pulled himself to his feet, grabbing his sketchbook with a small frown. Well. He wasn’t going to get any art done tonight, it seemed. Mournfully, he shot a glance over his shoulder, looking at the completely glass wall of the solarium. Daylight was fading, but the lawn was still a beautiful emerald and the sky was clear save a few puffs of white, and all Steve wanted to do was _draw_.

Nonetheless, he pulled himself to his feet, gathering up his things and readjusting the pillow he’d shifted around earlier. He went down a floor, first going to drop his textbook and sketchbook off in his room before he made his way to the family dining room.

Everyone else had already settled down at the table when Steve entered, a sheepish smile on his face.

“So nice of you to finally join us, Steve,” his mother’s teasing voice lilted across the room.

Steve turned, grinning broadly, and moved to give his mother a kiss on the cheek. Some people might view displaying too much affection for their parents embarrassing, but Steve had never really cared about that. His mother was his favorite person in the world, after all, and Steve had no qualms in making sure that she knew that.

“Sorry,” he finally said, settling into his seat at the table. “I would’ve come sooner but I figured you would be against me bringing my political science textbook to the dinner table with me.”

It wasn’t really a lie, but it gave him an excuse not to say _I didn’t want you all to see me with my sketchbook_ , so, even if it felt like a lie, Steve knew that the words were worth the guilt that was weighing down his stomach.

Harold laughed brightly, his eyes twinkling a bit. “Well, politics is never polite dinner conversation, after all. Even for a family of politicians.”

Steve laughed along with everyone else, and he tried his best to keep the bitter edge out of it. He didn’t want to come off as rude or anything of the like, nor did he want to start the _I really don’t want to be a politician_ conversation here (or at all, really).

“Are you excited for your party tomorrow, Sarah?” Clint asked brightly, steering the topic to something entirely different quickly. Steve still had yet to figure out if Clint was so apt at doing that because he could sense Steve’s discomfort or if he just couldn’t stand having any second of silence hanging in the middle of a conversation.

It could even be both, for all Steve knew.

He was grateful for it, nonetheless.

His mom’s face brightened a bit, her eyes alight as she said, “it should prove to be an entertaining night, I’m sure. Although, of course, there are some people there who I normally wouldn’t plan to spend my birthday with, but it’ll be nice to have such a big crowd. It’s been awhile since we’ve hosted an event here.”

Steve dug into the food in front of him, choosing to simply spectate the conversation as Clint snorted out a laugh.

“Are you talking about Rumlow?” He asked, his nose scrunching up. “I don’t know why he was invited again this year. Last year security had to escort him out.”

“He’s Senator Pierce’s assistant and dear friend,” Sarah said amicably, but Steve could see the tension in her expression. She definitely wasn’t happy about the situation either. “Of course we extended an invitation to him.”

Clint just snorted. “Senator Pierce probably wouldn’t give a fuck if Rumlow came or not. He’s bringing a plus one this year, after all. For the first time ever.”

“He is?” Steve asked, unable to contain his surprise.

It was probably a rude question to ask, but Steve was a bit shocked that Senator Pierce-- a man that everyone else seemed to have some sense of admiration for, even though he just kind of creeped Steve out-- had a date. Or that he could even get someone to agree to be his date. Not that he was going to admit that out loud. Nope.

Harold frowned. “Steve, you know he’s been engaged for half a year, right? I assume his fiance is coming with him.”

That was even more concerning, considering Steve’s mind couldn’t seem to process someone liking Alexander Pierce enough to spend an evening as his date, much less at least six months as he fiance, and probably more as his partner. (Girlfriend really seemed like too juvenile of a word to use when it came to Senator Pierce, so Steve figured _partner_ was probably more appropriate.)

“Oh.” Sarah set her eating utensils down the table. Her eyes were a bit wide, and, even though they were talking about the man who was likely to become her main political rival in the upcoming election, she was still smiling widely. “I knew he was seeing someone, but I didn’t know he was engaged either.”

Harold shrugged, seemingly far less interested in the conversation topic than everyone else at the table. “Ah, right. He told me the last time I saw him. Apparently, they were waiting for a bit to announce it to the public. I believe they were searching for an appropriate way to... handle the situation.”

Steve decided that _that_ sounded even more alarming.

“Um... What?” Clint asked, his eyes narrowing. His face screamed _how the fuck did I know not about this drama already? Drama is my thing_.

Or, well. Maybe that’s not _exactly_ what the look on Clint’s face was, but Steve figured it was pretty close.

“Oh.” Harold’s eyes grew a bit wide, but he took another bite of his food and swallowed it before continuing, “it’s not that there’s anything to be handled, necessarily, but from what I understood if the media caught wind of it at the wrong time it was just... Ah, a situation that could be painted in a very ugly light, even though their relationship is nothing like that.”

Sarah frowned a bit, looking ever the concerned mother. As weird as this conversation topic was for Steve to sit around and listen to, he couldn’t help but smile at the fact that his mother treated everything as a matter of utmost importance-- even if it was just a conversation about a possible scandal-worthy engagement.

“What’s up with them, then?” Clint asked. (Yeah, he was fishing for the drama alright.) He tapped his fingers against the table impatiently. “What’s so scandal worthy?”

For a second, there was something shifty in Harold’s eyes, something that made Steve’s stomach clench uncomfortably. It was gone quickly, though, replaced by an awkwardly sheepish smile. Steve glanced at his mother and Clint, but it seemed as if neither of them had paid any attention to the look, so he allowed himself to relax, his shoulders sinking back down a bit.

Harold coughed, pushing his food around with a fork like a child who was refusing to eat his vegetables. It was a little bit comical for a forty-eight-year-old _member of the House of Representatives._

“Well,” Harold finally said. “From what, ah, Senator Pierce told me..” There was a slight pause, awkward and hesitant. “Senator Pierce met his fiance in Romania. Said fiance doesn’t currently have a green card and won’t until they’re married, but I think he has a visa for that time? Um. But his fiance is also a man. Who is twenty years old.”

Steve choked on his chicken.

Clint’s mouth was hanging open, and Sarah-- while her face was schooled into a mask of pleasant surprise-- didn’t seem to be faring much better than her children.

 _“Twenty?_ ” Clint repeated. “Uh. There’s no way _Senator Pierce_ managed to bag someone half his age. Absolutely not. Nope.”

Sarah’s exasperated sigh of, _“Clint_ ,” caused Clint to glance at her, a sheepishly embarrassed smile on his face. Sarah just rolled her eyes and added, “don’t be rude.”

“I’m... I’m _not_ ,” Clint grumbled, but he shut up and instead decided to pick a battle with his chicken rather than with the President of the United States.

Sarah and Harold continued on to a new topic of conversation, chatting amicably. Steve leaned over to Clint while they were distracted and muttered, “maybe he just really wanted out of Romania.”

Clint tried to disguise his laughter as a cough but instead ended up making weird choking noises. It was probably one of the least subtle things Steve had ever seen. (It was also absolutely hilarious.)

Just as their parents turned to look at them, identical expressions of concern on their faces, Clint waved his hand around, shaking his head.

“I’m okay. I promise I’m okay.”

Steve raised a hand to his mouth to muffle his laughter.

Clint glared at him.

Steve just shrugged and mouthed, _“payback.”_

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Sarah suddenly asked. “Or is Steve being a little shit again?”

“Ma!” Steve turned to stare at his mother, his eyes widening. “I _promise_ I’m not. I swear.”

His mother definitely didn’t believe him at all. Steve could tell with one quick glance that she knew he was full of it. Thankfully, she didn’t call him out. Instead, she just sighed, shaking her head a bit, and turned back to her conversation with her husband.

“That’s so fucking unfair,” Clint whined.

Steve tried his hardest to not look like he was laughing at Clint, but it was a little difficult to try and eat while hiding his laughter.

“Will you boys stop goofing around and actually eat your dinner?”

Steve turned to look at his mother, biting back a broad smile at the mischievous glint in her eyes. Instead, he forced himself to nod seriously, eyes narrowed and offered, “oh, of course, Madam President.”

The table fell silent for a moment, the briefest of split seconds, and all of a sudden-- entirely unwanted-- Sam’s words from earlier came back to him, catching in his throat.

_"You know that you’d be miserable if you had to be a politician for the rest of your life.”_

Steve bit down on his tongue.

Sarah’s lips cracked into a wide grin, and she rolled her eyes at him. “Steven Grant.” She pointed a finger at him, then, her eyes narrowing, and Steve swallowed guiltily. He pushed all thoughts of his earlier conversation with Sam as far away as possible and turned to his mother with a grin. “Stop being a little shit and eat your food before it gets cold.”

So Steve did just that, and everything was lovely.

 _(You know_ , that voice in the back of his head that sounded exactly like Sam said, _you can only keep telling yourself that for so long, Steve.)_

He’d bring up his degree another time. Soon. He would. Steve just really didn’t want to ruin the moment. It was almost his mother’s birthday, after all.

She deserved better from him, at least just for now, and Steve was determined to give her just that.


	2. Flesh and Bone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Hello, all! 
> 
> Thank you so much for all the feedback on the first chapter and I hope you enjoy this one as well.

Steve had been at the party for all of an hour and he already wanted to leave and go to bed.

Then again, that wasn’t much of a surprise for him. Political galas always seemed to drain him faster than anything else in the world. They were stiff and awkward and horrible, and Steve really couldn’t imagine spending the rest of his life attending them.

God, he could already hear Sam  yelling at him and telling him to get his shit together.

In his search of something- _anything_ \- to do, Steve had found himself once again standing next to the food table, a plate held awkwardly in his hands as he peered at the delicious array of sustenance that lay before him.

“You know,” a voice said. “I hear that these parties are usually more enjoyable if you go talk to people instead of moping at the buffet table.”

Biting back a smile, Steve turned, pouting a bit at Natasha. “I’m really bad at talking to people, though.”

Natasha laughed, smirking at him. She looked as all-knowing as ever, and possibly just a bit mischievous. “You don’t have to remind me.”

Steve’s shoulders sagged a bit at the memory.

The first time he’d ever spoken to Natasha had been after he’d watched her and Clint interact for an hour. It had resulted in him blurting out, _“wait, are you two dating?”_ like an idiot while they both stared at him. It really wasn’t one of his finest moments and Steve preferred not to relive it, if possible.

Which, of course, was why Natasha took it upon herself to remind him of it as much as possible.

Steve figured she liked to watch him suffer. If she were anyone else he probably would have been offended by it, but she was _Natasha_ , so he figured it was best to just let her be. She could probably destroy him if she wanted to- be that physically or socially- and Steve was pretty sure it was just best to let her do her own thing.

Even if that thing made him turn bright red in public and stammer awkwardly.

Natasha was definitely taking pleasure in this moment. Steve could just tell.

Just as Steve was finally struggling through his embarrassment to find something worthwhile to say, Clint appeared out of nowhere, two flutes of champagne in hand. He settled into Natasha’s side, handing one of the flutes to her and pressing a hand against her back. The smile on his face made Steve smile just a little. Clint was always a happy person, but it seemed rare that there was a time when he was genuinely this _content_ with himself.

It was nice to see.

(Steve was a bit of a sap, yes, but he was willing to own that. Because Clint could be an asshole, but he was still the only brother Steve was ever going to have, and Steve wasn’t about to forget that anytime soon.)

“Hey, babe,” Clint greeted Natasha cheerily.

She pursed her lips, and Steve suspected it was mostly to hide a smile rather than because she was angry. For as mysterious as Natasha could be, at times, she wasn’t nearly as subtle as she seemed to think she was.

“Hi, Clint.”

Steve pressed a snort into the palm of his hand. He quickly managed to disguise it as a cough when he felt Natasha’s steely glare aimed at him. It really didn’t work out at all, but at least he tried, right?

“Hey, Steve,” Clint piped up suddenly, beaming at him. Steve glanced up, prepared to say hello back before Clint added, “shut the fuck up, pal.”

Right. Of course.

Steve sighed.

“Nice to see you tonight too, Clint. How are you enjoying the party so far? Is the food to your liking? I noticed there wasn’t any pizza. That must be a huge disappointment for you.”

“You’re such a patronizing pain in the ass.” Clint scoffed, wrinkling his nose, but Steve was pretty sure he was trying not to laugh. Steve had found himself in much of the same position, at this point.

Nonetheless, Steve kept his face in an impassive, polite mask. He wasn’t very good at politics, but, if there was anything he’d mastered over years and years of living amongst political figures, it was a mask that was good enough to fool everyone into believing that he was actually feeling nothing but polite vague interest. It was one of the most useful things Steve had learned because of politics. It was especially helpful, seeing as Steve was a shit actor.

“Steve,” Natasha said suddenly, and Steve broke his staring war with Clint to look at her. “Have you actually talked to anyone here tonight at all, or are you still trying your favorite avoidance tactic?”

Sometimes, Steve wished that Natasha didn’t know him well enough to see right through him. It was especially annoying, seeing as he could never tell when she was lying.

“I’m okay. Don’t worry about it, yeah? I guess I just don’t really feel like talking to people tonight. All anybody out there wants to do is kiss my ass because it’s my mom’s birthday, and what better time to try and schmooze up to the first son then when you actually have a conversation starter that forces him to stay put and talk to you.”

Neither Clint nor Natasha even tried to argue with him on that, which was a bit disheartening. Steve had been over exaggerating, just a bit, but Natasha was never one to over-do anything. (Except for keeping secrets.) If she thought that his words didn't need to be corrected, then it probably meant that they were pretty accurate.

A flare of stress burst through his stomach. Steve tried his hardest to not let it take control of him, but all he could think about was leaving the room as soon as possible and holing himself up in his bedroom for the rest of his evening. Probably with his sketchbook and a massive line of colored pencils so he could shade things appropriately.

At that moment, it was what Steve wanted more than anything else in the world, but he held his tongue, doing his best to relax. These parties always worked him up to this point, eventually. The tension of nerves bundling up in his stomach was building until it was something he could barely handle, and Steve couldn’t help but shift around, his eyes barely moving away from Clint and Natasha.

He needed to fucking breathe.

“I, uh. I think I’m going to go to the bathroom,” Steve said abruptly. He cradled his plate of food even closer to his chest and forced a bright smile. “I’ll see you guys later, yeah?”

Clint and Natasha just nodded, watching him go with small smiles, and Steve hightailed it out of the ballroom and upstairs to his room before anyone could stop him.

After he set his plate of food down on his desk and closed the door behind him, Steve sunk to the floor. He pressed his hands against the soft carpet, his fingers running through the strands of it just to feel something. It felt soft and a bit uncomfortable under his hands.

Maybe he didn’t need soft, right now.

Maybe soft was too much.

Taking a deep breath, Steve forced himself to his feet. In the silence of his room, the anxiety that had been building steadily within him seemed to have dissipated a bit, but that didn’t mean that Steve was ready to go back into the fray of the party. Glancing to the side, Steve froze, suddenly, his hands reaching out almost without his will.

He probably shouldn’t.

Still, he latched onto the drawer that held his sketchbook, grabbed the key and unlocked it, and took it out. Slowly, with measured movements, he grabbed his box of colored pencils as well, clutching them to his chest. The plate of food forgotten on his desk, Steve turned on his heel, slipping out of his room and made his way downstairs.

It was what he needed right now. Steve was sure of it.

And, yes, it was probably a stupid idea.

Steve knew that from the start. He wasn’t dumb, not in the least, but he would argue that he had slightly impaired decision-making skills, sometimes.

He knew how likely it was for one of his family members to come looking for him, after all, and if they found him he’d somehow have to explain why he was hiding in a hallway off to the side of the ballroom with a sketchbook and a mass of colored pencils. It definitely wasn’t an explanation he wanted to give anytime soon and, yet, Steve had decided he was going to risk it anyways.

His hands flew across the paper, drawing lines and shading things in. Briefly, he lifted his hand away to stare at the sketch of the hallway, inspecting it carefully. He smudged a few lines of shading together with the side of his pinky finger before picking up his pencil again, whistling softly to himself.

Just as he was picking up momentum, a voice from behind him said, “your drawing is very beautiful.”

Steve startled, gasping out a harried, "what the _fuck,_ " and turned to stare at the figure who was standing behind him.

“Oh!” The person- a man, it sounded like, from the deeper timbre of his voice- laughed, pressing a hand to his mouth. “I’m so sorry. I thought you knew that I was standing behind you. I promise that startling you was not my intention.”

A thick, hard to place accent drifted over the words, giving them a new layer of depth that Steve wanted to decipher more than anything. The man himself, dressed in a form-fitting suit that did lovely things to the slight curves of his waist and hips, smiled brightly. He was clean shaven, his hair styled up in a delightfully swishy kind of way, and his smile lit up his blue-grey eyes- how the _fuck_ , did he manage to look like he had an honest to god thunderstorm going on in his _eyes?_ \- and put his dimples on full display.

Fuck, Steve wanted to draw him.

(Was that weird? It might be a little bit weird.)

“Oh, uh.” Steve cleared his throat and waved his hand around, trying to pretend he wasn’t flustered. He was fairly certain that he failed miserably. “No, it’s, um. It’s no problem. Don’t worry about it. I just... I was worried you were someone else, so I panicked a bit.”

The man’s smile only grew. He ducked his head almost shyly, fiddling with the sleeves of his suit.

And, fuck, he might be the most beautiful person Steve had ever seen.

“Still, I’m very sorry to have bothered you. If I had known you did not want company I would have kept my opinion on your gorgeous artwork to myself.”

Then, with practiced grace, the man side-stepped along to the music that was floating down the hallway from the ballroom. It was an unnatural leap in their conversation, but Steve found he didn’t care at all. This man was so ethereal that he could likely get away with doing anything and Steve would think it was the most wonderful that had ever happened to him.

His beauty wasn’t just in his face, either, nor his stature- although those definitely helped- but in the way he held himself. There was something so artful about the way his entire aura seemed to be made up of gentle kindness, grace, sex appeal, and confidence. It shouldn’t have been a combination that worked, and, yet, the more Steve watched him move he decided that _yeah_ , _it definitely did work. It_ really  _worked._

“Um, it’s... okay,” Steve said hesitantly, watching as the man continued his lilting step motions. “Are you... Um. Are you dancing? Out here?”

An easy laugh came from the man- the really hot guy? The most lovely person he’d ever laid eyes on? The belle of the ball? Steve really wasn’t sure what to call him- and Steve felt his chest catch just a bit at the sound.

“I am,” the man said brightly. “There was very little dance happening inside and I could no longer bear to stand still, so I came out here to dance.”

“You…” Steve blinked slowly, still unable to do anything other than stare. “You probably could’ve started dancing in there, if you wanted to. I don’t think anyone would have stopped you.”

The man halted, suddenly, turning to look at Steve, his eyes widening. “Oh, no. I could never. It would draw far too much attention to me. Besides, it looks foolish to dance alone, and anyone I would be able to dance with is currently preoccupied.”

Something about that seemed inherently off-kilter and all around _weird_ , but Steve fought back his frown. Instead, he just wrinkled his nose at the other man. “Well, um. You’re very good at dancing.”

He was graced with another beautiful smile.

“Thank you,” the man said softly.

There was something so genuine in his tone and it made Steve want to hole up in this hallway and only talk to him for the rest of the night. Anyone who spoke with that much authenticity in their voice couldn’t be a politician, and that thought itself was absolutely thrilling when one was literally drowning in hundreds of politician’s fake-smile-fake-words outlook at a White House party.

“You... Uh, did you come as someone’s plus one?”

The man stared back at him, seemingly trying to figure out if he should be offended, and then smiled and offered, “I did. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, it’s just-” Steve laughed nervously, running a hand through his hair. “Most of the people that were invited tonight are politicians and you... You don’t talk like a politician.”

A bright laugh fell from the man’s lips. If Steve closed his eyes and just pictured it, he could equate it to bells ringing and sunlight, which was really- when he thought about it more- cheesy as fuck, but also true.

“I should hope I don’t. Politicians are boring.”

Steve ducked his head, muffling laughter with his hand.

At least he wasn’t the only at this party who didn’t like politicians one bit.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “They definitely are.”

“Oh. Um. Are you a politician?” The man asked rather suddenly. He seemed alarmed by the very possibility of it. “I... I sincerely apologize, if you are.”

Steve shook his head quickly, his nose scrunching up. “No, I’m not. I’m... I’m actually studying to be one right now, but... You know. I don’t really think it’s what I want to do.”

Most people, whenever Steve confessed this to them- and that was a very small number of people- often said something about how he ought to talk to someone about his unhappiness, or how he ought to find a way to be at peace with himself or some other bullshit like that.

This man just tilted his head a bit and said, “what do you dream of doing, then?”

“What?” Steve blinked a few times, his hands moving nervously as he stared at the mystery in front of him. “I’m... What?”

“Everyone dreams of doing something, even if they never talk about it.” Another brilliant smile that did uncomfortable things to the pit of Steve’s stomach greeted him when he looked up again. “What is it you dream of doing, then?”

“I think I’d want to be an artist.” Steve looked down at the sketchbook in his lap. “Of some kind, anyways. It’s something I know I’d enjoy.”

There was no judgment in those lovely eyes, just a considerate hum, and a nod. “And what is it that keeps stopping you from chasing after your dream?”

That was what caused Steve to freeze, staring down at his hands and trying his best not to think about the fact that this man was going to know some of Steve’s darkest secrets if their conversation continued on like this. Steve didn’t even know his _name_. It was ridiculous, and even more ridiculous was the fact that he was actually considering spilling his guts to this man.

“I... My entire family is politicians,” Steve admitted after a moment. “I think everyone just always assumed I’d grow up to be one too. And now that I’ve got myself here I really don’t know how to get out of it without upsetting people, I guess. My mom would be so disappointed.”

“Would she?” His voice was so quiet, so calming and gentle. Steve felt his shoulders sag. “Most mothers would care more about their child’s happiness rather than their own. What is it that is so different about your situation that makes you so sure she would react poorly?”

Steve laughed, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. It was more awkward than anything else. He couldn’t help it.

Finally, he just shrugged. “Everybody expects me to become the president someday,” he admitted, staring down at his sketchbook, still sitting open in his lap, showing his artwork off to the rest of the world. “I’m not sure how I feel about it, but I know what people want of me.”

“So?” There was a sharp tone to the man’s voice, now, and Steve felt a jolt in his stomach at the thought of someone being upset on his behalf. It was oddly charming, in a way. “You are allowed to be a person and not just a figurehead. It is within your every right. You just have to be brave enough to take what you want before you watch it slip away to appease other people.”

_Fuck._

Steve swallowed and said, “you know, you’re pretty intense. We don’t even know each other’s names.”

“Oh.” The man blinked, seemingly startled by this realization. A flush bloomed on his cheekbones, rosy and gentle, and Steve bit back the urge to smile.“I’m- I’m so sorry, I promise I did not mean to do that. Sorry. But, um. Hello. My name is-”

“Ah, Steven. It’s so good to see you again.”

The voice that interrupted them was smooth- politician smooth, a tone that Steve was truly an expert at recognizing at this point in his life- and so he turned, nodding and smiling politely at the man even before he had placed him. Not that it was difficult to identify the man who had approached him. Steve would have to be blind to not recognize the man who was about to be his mother’s biggest competitor for the next Presidential election.

“Senator Pierce,” Steve offered, a bland smile on his lips. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

And- well. Steve wasn’t a politician, nor did he really want to be one (ever), but he’d spent enough of his life around people working in politics that he could fake a convincing “it’s nice to see you” even if he rather disliked the person standing across from him.

Senator Pierce, for all his charming grace and easy smiles, had always given Steve the creeps.

(Yes, _"creeps"_ was a technical term. Obviously. Steve was in college studying Political Science with a focus in American Politics and too many rhetoric classes. He knew words. He was good with words. Some of the time.)

“I hope James here hasn’t been a bother,” Pierce continued, smiling at Steve. It seemed rather condescending, and Steve kind of wanted to punch him. He restrained himself, however. Mostly just because he knew his mother probably wouldn’t approve of that behavior. And because the press would enjoy the headline of _First Son Steve Rogers Punches Senator Pierce at Gala_ far too much.

“James,” Steve repeated blankly. He blinked slowly, before glancing at the young man in front of him. “Oh! Uh, no of course not.”

James let out a soft laugh that was kind of like bells. Steve probably shouldn’t have found it attractive, but it was definitely attractive.

“Oh, Alexander,” James said, a flirty grin pulling his lips upwards. “Just because I understand little of American politics does not mean I’m going to embarrass you.”

Steve spent a good portion of the next minute- in other words, way too fucking long- thinking about how pretty James’ accent was rather than the fact that he appeared to be flirting with Alexander Pierce.

(Which was... Yeah. Yikes.)

Pierce’s smile turned just a slight bit predatory, and Steve shifted uncomfortably.

“Don’t worry, my darling.” Pierce pressed a light kiss to the crown of James’ head, which, somehow, mussed up his hair just a bit to look as if it was now stylishly disheveled. Steve kind of wished that he could be that effortlessly beautiful and graceful, even though he knew it would never happen. “I know you would never mean to. But I also happen to know how curious you are, and I didn’t want you to bombard poor Mr. Rogers with too many difficult questions.”

Steve’s shoulders jerked backward.

Those words just sounded like a diplomatic way of saying _you embarrass me a lot without meaning to_ and _Steve Rogers is a fucking idiot_ , and Steve really didn’t find himself taking kindly to either of the loaded meanings behind Pierce’s words. Just as he was gearing up to go off on Pierce- and, really, this was why Steve figured he should _never_ become a politician contrary to what his family wanted because, god, he never knew when to keep his mouth shut- that tinkling laugh cut him off again.

“I’m not a child, Alexander. I can take care of myself, although I do appreciate you wanting to look after me so badly.” James smiled at Pierce and then at Steve, before leaning in to press a kiss to Pierce’s cheek. “Now, I do believe there are people who want to talk to you, and it wouldn’t do for me to take up all of your attention. Go, Alexander. I’ll be fine. I promise.”

The tension in the air seemed to dissipate within seconds, then, and Pierce stroked a finger across James’s cheek. The motion was possessive- kind of creepy, more than anything else- but that wasn’t surprising considering this was _Alexander Pierce_. Steve watched awkwardly as Pierce leaned in and kissed James before turning around and wandering back towards the group he had been speaking with a few minutes ago.

“Sorry.” James’s voice was all sorts of delicate and gentle. “Do forgive him for that. Sometimes I think he lacks social grace more than I do.”

Steve blinked slowly. “Um. I think most people are lacking in social grace compared to you.”

James was laughing again, the sound far too pleasing, but there was also something alight in his eyes. Steve wasn’t sure if it was amusement or if it was possible alarm that this person he’d just meant was awkwardly complimenting him so much, but Steve was going to hope for amusement.

“I’m putting on a show, Mr. Rogers.” James smiled. “And, ah. While I’m glad to have fooled you, I must assure you that normally I’m pretty awful at being so diplomatic.”

“Please just call me Steve.” He reached back and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m way too young to have people calling me ‘Mr. Rogers’ already.”

James was silent, the blue of his eyes just a bit pensive, before he smiled, his lips splitting with the laughter that he couldn’t keep in. “Steve,” he agreed. “Call me Bucky, then. Ah, if you don’t mind.”

“Um.” Steve paused, a burst of laughter threatening to escape him. “Sorry, uh. Bucky?”

Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but James's- _Bucky’s_ \- cheeks looked just a bit flushed, his wonderful ever-charming smile still tugging them upwards, giving him a sort of pleased and bashful appearance. It was lovely- adorable, even. Kind of like Bucky, actually. Bucky was just lovely. Adorable. Kind of amazing.

Steve bit down on his bottom lip to stop himself from saying something embarrassing.

“It’s a... a nickname,” Bucky said, lifting one shoulder in an effortless shrug. “My sister gave it to me when she was still little and couldn’t fully pronounce my name. And I suppose I haven’t escaped it since then.”

 _Okay, yeah,_ Steve decided. _That was fucking adorable._

Shifting a bit, Steve found himself unable to look away from Bucky. He was trapped within the peacefully stormy gaze of the other man, and, oddly enough, Steve never wanted to move. There were far worse things than spending his time staring at the beautiful man in front of him, no matter how pointless it was. Especially considering-

Steve frowned.

“So... Why Alexander Pierce?” He asked.

Bucky seemed startled by the question. His shoulders drooped just a bit and his eyes flickered briefly around, almost panicked, before his charming smile was back in place, his eyes carefully blank. It was almost startling to watch, that bright burst of panic appear and disappear so quickly that it seemed almost as if it had never been there.

“Ah.” Bucky pursed his lips, flicking his hair over his shoulder in a smooth, practiced motion. “Well, it is a rather long story, I suppose. I don’t quite think I have the time to tell it right now.”

That wasn’t exactly what Steve had wanted to hear, but it also wasn’t surprising. From Bucky’s reaction to Steve’s original questions, Steve had expected him to dance around the subject as much as possible. Whether it was because they were in such a public place, or just because Bucky didn’t want to talk about his engagement at all, it seemed that there were some things that were better left unspoken.

Steve nodded slowly, smiling at Bucky. “Okay,” he agreed. “I, uh. I was just curious because... Well. I’ve been coming to these events practically all my life and I’ve never seen Senator Pierce bring anyone with him. I think we all just kind of assumed that he never would. And, ah. You’re a lot younger than him.”

That tinkling laugh was back again, all delicate and bright. “Trust me, I’m well aware of that fact.”

“You...” Steve paused, his head tilting back a bit. “You love him, though?”

The question- while well-intentioned- seemed to be the wrong one to ask Bucky. He froze for a split second, his smile forcing itself a bit higher and his breath stuttering. It looked horribly unnatural on his face, especially after the self-assured grin that he’d been giving Steve for hours. In fact, there was almost something pained about the way he was looking at Steve now.

Part of Steve wished that he could take the question back.

Another smaller part of him simply said, _something doesn’t feel right_.

“I suppose I do,” Bucky said quietly. “I’m not very good with love, Steve. I don’t think I ever have been. And... Well. What Alexander and I have is... It’s very beneficial to both of us. And we get along quite well. It’s not as if it was ever difficult for me to be his... Partner.”

Steve frowned. “But wouldn’t you rather... I don’t know. Be in love with someone?”

Bucky was quiet for a long time, then. He didn’t even move to look at Steve, just kept staring out the window as if the stars would hold all the answers to Steve’s questions in them. Steve took a moment to admire how beautiful Bucky looked in the moonlight. Everything about him seemed so much softer and delicate.

God, Steve needed to get his shit together.

It took him far too long, probably, but Steve forced himself to look away from Bucky. Instead, he turned his head to gaze out at the world around them. Tonight was especially clear. The stars were beautiful. A part of Steve ached to draw, suddenly, or paint, just so he could try and capture the peacefulness of their silence.

“Love is difficult.”

Steve snapped his head up, turning to look at Bucky. Bucky still hadn’t moved, but he spoke anyway. His voice was steady, his accent dipping up and through the words he spoke, twisting them into something oddly beautiful, even if they were a bit tragic.

“What?” Steve asked. He felt his brow pull down, his eyes narrowing just the slightest bit.

“Love is difficult,” Bucky repeated. A smile that held nothing within it- no happiness, no sadness, no semblance of anything that should cause a smile at all- pulled his lips upwards. “I am... Ah. I am unsure if I’ve ever felt it truly. After all, how does one know when what they feel for someone else is love?"

Steve tilted his head to the side briefly, fighting off the sound of laughter at two in the morning and the feeling of soft touches and gentle kisses as best he could. For a split second, he couldn’t even bring himself to say anything. Instead, he just considered the question.

“I think, um. You just kind of know, one day, if it’s what you feel,” Steve replied suddenly, unable to hold the words back. They burst out of him in a way that was freeing and painful all at the same time. “It... It settles in your chest, I think. And you don’t even really know it’s there until you realize that you can’t imagine your life without them in it, and then it doesn’t leave and it’s all you can think about. And it’s... It’s not a weight, not really, but it still feels heavy, you know? Like, uh... Like you’ll always know it’s there. And that’s okay. It’s a good kind of okay, and it kind of centers you, in this weird way.”

Bucky turned to look at him then, his eyes wide and considering. Steve swore his heart was trying to beat out of his chest, in that moment, as he watched Bucky process his words with a small frown on his lips. Had he made things awkward? Steve might have made things horribly awkward.

“You’re very good with words, Steve Rogers,” Bucky said gently.

Steve huffed out a laugh. “Uh. You might be the first person to ever say that to me, pal, but thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Steve stared at Bucky for probably a split second too long before he laughed awkwardly, rolling his shoulders back. “Um. Sorry about all that. I should probably, uh, go. It’s getting late and I have classes and everything in the morning so I should... Yeah. It was really great to meet you, Bucky. Thanks for talking with me.”

That amused look was back on Bucky’s face. Normally, when people looked at him like that, Steve would get angry- then again, Steve did enjoy being angry far more than the average person- but, instead, he felt a rather pleasant sort of warmth bloom in his chest. Steve wasn’t entirely sure why Bucky was so different from everyone else, but he figured it might have something to do with the fact that his smile made something catch in Steve’s chest.

“It was a pleasure to meet you too, Steve.”

Steve nodded, smiling at Bucky, and took a few steps away backward before he turned to exit the hallway and go find Phil.

“Wait, Steve!”

Bucky’s voice seemed to freeze him in place, causing Steve to jerk to a stop. He turned quickly to look at Bucky, watching as the other man came down the hallway after him.

“Yeah?” Steve asked.

“Do you, uh.” Bucky looked a little nervous, now. He still wore that charming smile like a second skin, but the way his hand ran through his hair screamed of tension. “Do you mind if I ask you for your number? I... I think I’d quite like to be friends with you. I, ah. I don’t have many of those here. And I’d... I’d rather like for you to be one of them. If you don’t mind.”

That was really fucking cute too. Steve blinked a few times.

“Um. Yeah. Yeah, of course, Bucky. I’d love to.”

“Oh.” A relieved smile tilted Bucky’s lips further upwards, causing him to laugh softly. “Good. That’s very good. Thank you, Steve.”

Steve shook his head. “Don’t thank me. I’d, um. I’d be honored to be your friend, Buck.”

In all reality, he’d be honored to spend the rest of his life doing anything that would get Bucky to keep beaming at him like that. It was a rather unrealistic hope, but some part of his heart clung to it pathetically.

Bucky’s smile was beautiful, after all.

Steve just wanted to immortalize it, whether it be with a sketchpad, a canvas, or by always giving Bucky a reason to smile like that.

“I’m glad.” Bucky’s face softened, some of the thunder in his eyes drifting into calm. “I’m very glad, Steve.”

The only response Steve was able to give was a dumb smile in Bucky’s direction. They stood there like that for a few seconds, grinning stupidly at each other, before Bucky seemed to startle a bit. He shuffled back a few steps, a soft red lighting up his pale skin.

Steve took a moment to appreciate the simple beauty of the look, trying to commit as much of Bucky’s face as possible to memory so that he could try and draw him when he got home. Which... Well. Maybe that was a bit creepy. Would it be better if he asked Bucky for permission to draw him? Steve wasn’t entirely sure.

Bucky hummed softly and said, “Ah. I... I should probably go before Alexander comes looking for me. That would... ” His voice tripped over the end of the words, causing him to clear his throat in some attempt to hide the stumble. “That would be improper.”

The words landed unnaturally in the air around them, but Steve didn’t say anything about the oddness of them. Instead, he just nodded slowly. “Of course. Yeah. It was really great to meet you, Bucky.”

“It was good to meet you too, Steve,” Bucky said, his smile brightening more than really should have been possible.

“Oh, wait,” Steve said quickly, just as Bucky turned to leave. Hurriedly, he snatched his phone from his pocket and held it out to Bucky. “Um. Put your number in and I’ll call you or, um. Text you or something.”

“ _Oh_ .” Bucky took the phone from him, his eyes glistening. Steve’s thoughts went on a quick mantra of _fuck, wow. Fuck._ “Yes, thank you.”

“Have a good evening, Bucky,” Steve said. He accepted his phone as Bucky handed it to him and took a slow step back. “I hope you get home safely.”

Bucky smiled at him. “Thank you, Steve. I had a good time tonight. Um. With you.”

If he were a good person then that probably wouldn’t make him as happy as it did and, yet, here Steve stood, grinning like a complete idiot in the middle of an empty hallway. He stood there uselessly, watching as Bucky walked away from him.

And shamelessly he could admit to himself, at least, that it was a pretty nice view.

(Yeah. It was definitely a bit creepy.)

Whirling away from where he was now staring stupidly at the wall, Steve turned to pick up his sketchbook. He needed to be fast before someone else came out here to find him. He’d been standing around for too long, and he wasn’t about to let someone discover him avoiding a party with his sketchbook. He’d already talked enough about his dreams tonight with Bucky, after all.

( _You need to tell her_ , the Sam-voice said again. _You need to tell her soon, Steve._ )

Steve sighed, hunching his shoulders inwards. Quickly, he snuck past the ballroom, making his way upstairs so he could put his sketchbook away. As he passed the ballroom, he caught sight of his mother, standing there and laughing with Clint and Natasha, and thought: _Soon._

For now, however, he had more important things to do.

Steve Rogers had a party of politicians to go charm, more food to go eat, and a beautiful boy with eyes like a stormy day and a smile like summer that he had to find a way to stop thinking about.

He already knew that it wasn’t going to go well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading!
> 
> Please feel free to comment or leave some kudos! I live off of them. And you can also find me [right here](http://buckleupsupersoldier.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you want to chat.


	3. I Forget Where We Were

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back again! Hello, all! 
> 
> Thank you so much for all the feedback on the first two chapters, and I hope you enjoy (this really, really long monster of a) chapter as well.

**_Steve:_** Um, hi, Bucky. This is Steve. I just wanted to make sure you had my number and, uh. Yeah. So. Yup. Hi.

 **_Bucky:_ ** Wow, pal, that was awkward as fuck. How long did it take you to type that one out?

 ** _Steve:_**  ... Wow.

 **_Steve:_ ** You really weren’t kidding last night when you said you were ‘putting on a show’, huh?

 ** _Bucky:_** I don’t joke, Rogers.

 **_Steve:_ ** You know, I think I liked you better last night.

 ** _Bucky:_** Oh. Um.

 **_Bucky:_ ** Sorry. I’ll stop talking _._

 **_Steve:_ ** That was a joke. Sorry!

 **_Bucky:_ ** Oh. Okay.

 **_Bucky:_ ** Good, then.

 **_Steve:_ ** Hey, do you want ice cream?

_. . ._

In his own defense, Steve hadn’t actually thought that Bucky would _agree_ to go get ice cream with him.

It was, after all, two in the morning on a Tuesday, and Steve was only awake because he had needed to finish an assignment for his class that he had procrastinated on until the last possible second. Usually, when he did dumb things like that, his first thought was to go ahead and get himself some kind of sugary food. He deserved it after finally doing his work.

Or, at least, that was what he liked to tell himself.

Steve was well aware that it was total bullshit, but that had never really stopped him before.

So, here he was, out at his favorite hole in the wall ice cream place at two in the fucking morning, waiting for Bucky to show up. Steve pressed a hand to his mouth, yawning slightly.

Hopefully, there was no one out at two in the morning who would take a look at him and recognize him as Sarah Rogers’s son, but, just in case, Steve had grabbed his favorite baseball cap as a disguise. Normally, he would have brought his sunglasses with him, but he figured that wearing sunglasses at two in the morning would probably make him look like a pretentious dickhead. Or Tony Stark.

(Well. He wasn’t sure there was _too_ much of a difference, in the end. Tony made it charming, though. Somehow.)

“You really aren’t as subtle as you think you are,” a voice said suddenly, and Steve looked up to find himself face to face with a smirking Bucky Barnes.

Not only was Bucky’s smirk entirely too much for Steve to process, but Bucky was also standing there, wearing sweatpants and a hoodie that looked huge on him. He looked rumpled and soft, and it was kind of messing with Steve’s mind. There had been no denying the fact that Bucky had looked gorgeous the other night in his suit and fancy get-up, but there was also no denying that Bucky looked gorgeous right now too, and that was even scarier.

_Oh, fuck._

Steve snorted, rolling his eyes. “I wasn’t trying to be subtle. Not really. The likelihood of someone recognizing me here at two in the morning is slim. I just wanted to make it... Maybe a bit slimmer?”

That, for whatever reason, seemed to please Bucky, because he was definitely biting his bottom lip to try and hide his smile.

“Ah,” Bucky agreed, settling into the chair next to him with a grace that it seemed he couldn’t possibly possess. “Well, then let’s hope that works out for you. You are pretty famous, apparently. I have no idea how I managed to not recognize you the other night.”

It was embarrassing, but- oddly enough- not in the bad way that normally felt so suffocating to him. No. Steve was pretty sure he was blushing right now, actually. He felt so flustered that it seemed to be the natural reaction, even if he had no idea _why_ he was so flustered.

Well. No. That was a lie. Steve knew why he was flustered, and it had everything to do with how charming Bucky Barnes happened to be.

(Some far away part of his mind forced _engaged to Alexander Pierce_ on repeat, but the thought made him cringe, so Steve pushed it away.)

“What are you doing up at two in the morning anyways?” Steve asked suddenly.

It was an abrupt change in topic, Steve was well aware of it, but it was absolutely necessary. He needed Bucky to stop grinning at him like that, because it was definitely doing weird things to Steve. He tried his best not to think about it. Couldn’t think about it. Didn’t know how to.

He wasn’t going to think about it now. It was fucking two in the morning. Steve really didn’t have that much brain power this early in the morning.

Bucky shrugged, slouching back into his chair. “I find that I often sleep at weird times. I’m incapable of falling asleep early in the evening, so I spend a lot of my time wandering around as much as I can at night. It gives me a sense of freedom.”

“You feel trapped, then?” Steve said. He tilted his head to the side, frowning over at Bucky. “Normally?”

“Oh.” Bucky smiled, rueful and sheepish all in one and, fuck, he was the most beautiful thing Steve had ever seen. (He really needed to stop talking.) “I suppose. I, um. I think it would feel difficult not to feel at least a little bit trapped, in my circumstance. I manage, though. Do the best I can with trying not to feel that way. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how hard that must be.”

Bucky glanced up, his eyes narrowed. There was something playful still dancing in his eyes, but his face was serious, and Steve felt himself freeze up a bit at the genuinity of his serenely determined gaze.

“Actually.” Bucky trailed his fingers across the tabletop. “I imagine that you probably understand how I feel better than most.”

“I do?”

“Well. You’re cornered too, right? It always is a difficult position to be in, no matter the scale of it.”

Steve couldn’t do anything for a few seconds except stare at Bucky, his heart caught in his throat. Bucky knew too many of his secrets, especially considering the fact that Steve knew almost nothing about him, and it was a concerning thought.

Finally, Steve shrugged. He forced himself to look away from Bucky and down at the table in front of him. “Right. Yeah. Um... I guess I am. I’ve never thought about it like that, but it does kind of feel like I’m... trapped sometimes.” He cleared his throat, shoulders tensing up. “Why do you feel trapped?”

“I-” There was a silence as Bucky seemed to adjust his posture, and his words tapered off before he started again. “I suppose it likely has something to do with being brought to a new country. It’s a bit isolating. I didn’t really know any Americans before I came here and it’s very lonely.”

Steve nodded. “You miss home, then.”

“Yes.” Bucky smiled at him. He looked so peaceful and soft, then, and Steve’s two-in-the-morning brain decided that he definitely wanted to cuddle Bucky right now. Which... No. Obviously, that wasn’t going to happen. “I do.”

“Just the place or the people as well?”

Bucky’s eyes flickered up to him and then away quickly. “Um. I, ah. I was alone back there. So... I suppose the place more than the people?”

Steve’s stomach dropped to his feet. “Oh. Oh, fuck. I’m so sorry, Bucky. I had no idea.”

Bucky laughed delicately. There was something a little fragile in his eyes, but Steve decided that it was best not to question it. Bucky had come out to get ice cream with him at two in the morning, after all. He didn’t want to push Bucky or anything. That would be cruel.

“How could you have known? It’s alright, Steve. I promise.”

Steve shrugged, a sheepish little smile on his face. “It still sucks,” he said quietly. “Losing people is hard.”

Something in Bucky seemed to come loose and soften, even if Steve couldn’t place it.

“It is,” he agreed.

They were silent then, just staring at each other. It was kind of peaceful, in a way.

“So did you actually want ice cream or did you just drag me all the way out here at two in the morning so you could see what I looked like when I’m running on no sleep?”

Steve was pretty sure he was bright red, now.

“No, I want ice cream,” he declared. He pulled himself to his feet, moving around the table to the counter.

Bucky smiled at him, looking soft and amused. “That’s good, pal,” he said easily. He stood up to join Steve, walking in pace with him. “Since it’s what we came here for.”

“Maybe I have different priorities than you,” Steve said snootily. A grin threatened to overtake his face, but he bit it back.

“Ah.” Bucky shrugged. “Does that mean you came here just to see me, Mr. Rogers?”

Steve was definitely not blushing.

(Steve was totally blushing.)

“Nah, I came here for the view.” Steve gestured to the window next to them, any view obscured by a boringly generic brick wall. Bucky snorted with laughter. “The ice cream is just below that. You’re... Somewhere on the list. I don’t know. I’ll figure it out later.”

“Wow,” Bucky drawled. “Thanks. I’m so honored.”

Steve ducked his head to hide his embarrassing smile. “Yeah, you’d better be.”

_. . ._

**_Bucky:_ ** why is american food so weird?

 ** _Steve:_** Wow. Um, rude much?

 ** _Bucky:_** no, I’m serious. why do so many of you avoid soup so much? soup is like the best thing to ever exist.

 **_Steve:_ ** Soup?

 **_Bucky:_ ** fuck yeah, soup.

 **_Steve:_ ** Do Romanian people eat soup a lot?

 **_Bucky:_ ** i’ll have you know that bean soup is the staple of every romanian diet.

 **_Steve:_ ** The problem here is I can never tell if you’re telling the truth or if you just tell me these things in the hopes that someday I’ll make a fool of myself when I talk about them.

 **_Bucky:_ ** guess you’ll never find out :)

 **_Steve:_ ** I hate you

**_Bucky: ..._ **

**_Bucky:_** :( okay :((

 **_Steve:_ ** Fine, I don’t hate you.

 **_Bucky:_ ** :D

 **_Steve:_ ** Shut up.

 **_Bucky:_ ** never.

_. . ._

“Have you talked to your mom yet, Rogers?”

Steve froze for a few seconds, blinking slowly before he picked his bag back up and shouldered it. He’d been in the library for all of two seconds, it felt like, but Steve wasn’t dealing with Sam’s nagging today. It just wasn’t going to happen.

Shaking his head, Steve pushed the chair back into the table and said, “Nope, not doing this.”

Sam’s face was fixed in his unamused-as-fuck expression, but what did he know, anyways? Steve didn’t need to deal with this kind of judgment in his life.

“Steven,” Sam said. “Sit your ass back down in that chair and face your problems like an adult, thank you very much.”

The whine that left Steve’s throat was pathetic, yes, and he would probably spend the rest of eternity denying that he was even capable of making sounds like that. “Sam. C’mon.”

“Nope.” Sam popped the ‘p’ of the word loudly, a bland look on his face. “Sit down, dumbass.”

“I don’t want to.”

Steve- because he was a mature adult and very much not a five-year-old, thanks- crossed his arms over his chest and pouted away at Sam. It didn’t seem to even have an effect on Sam, of course, because Steve had picked to be best friends with a heartless bastard. Well. No. Sam wasn’t _that_ bad.

(God, Steve couldn’t even stay mad at Sam in his own thoughts. What the fuck.)

" _Steve."_

Steve sat down.

However, in a fit of extreme rebellion, he slumped across the table, glaring up at Sam from where his chin rested on his folded arms. Sam didn’t seem impressed by his display, but he didn’t say anything, so Steve was going to count it as a win.

“You need to talk to Sarah, Steve,” Sam said. Steve glanced up at Sam again before he forced himself to look away glaring at the wall behind Sam’s head. “You know you do. Before you get stuck studying politics and end up on some trajectory to be president yourself.”

“I’d make a great president, excuse you.”

(Steve was an actual five-year-old. For some reason, he really didn’t feel bad about it.)

Sam frowned. “Sorry, buddy, but you’ve spent too much of your life living in the White House. It’s time to get the fuck out and let someone else move in.”

Steve rolled his eyes. He couldn’t help himself.

“Whatever,” he grumbled.

His phone, from where he had set it on the table just to his right, buzzed annoyingly. Steve glanced down at the screen and bit back the smile that threatened to break free when he realized that Bucky had texted him again.

“Steve, come on.” Sam jabbed his shoulder. Steve whined at him. “Don’t do this to yourself. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I really want to help you. You deserve better than spending the rest of your life doing something that you’re not interested in. You’re passionate about art so you should be doing _art,_ not fucking politics.”

This whole thing was almost worse because Steve knew Sam was right. He was well aware of it, actually. However, there was this awful feeling in the pit of his stomach every time he even tried to think about even bringing the subject up with his mom. It wasn’t even that he thought she would disapprove or be disappointed in him, not really. What Steve was really worried about was that he wouldn’t live up to the legacy his mother and father had both left behind for him.

And that was a terrifying thought.

Steve’s phone buzzed again. Bucky was still texting him, although Steve hadn’t looked to see what it was about, yet.

Just as he reached to open up his phone, Steve realized that Sam was still talking and he blinked, a bit surprised when Sam’s voice tapered off into silence.

“Okay,” Sam said. “Who the fuck keeps texting you?”

“Oh.” Steve shrugged. He wasn’t entirely sure what he should say about Bucky. What did he even describe Bucky as? _The really hot guy I like a lot and lust after? Senator Alexander Pierce’s fiance? A genuinely charming person that I enjoy spending time with?_ “It’s just... My friend.”

Well. He could have said something far worse.

“Your friend,” Sam repeated. “That’s it, Rogers? That’s all you’re gonna give me?”

Steve made a face. “Well, I mean-”

 _"Steve,_ ” Bucky’s voice exclaimed. “I knew it was you, you punk. Why the hell were you ignoring my texts?”

“Um,” Sam said.

Steve just kind of sat there.

Bucky startled a bit when he realized that Steve wasn’t alone. He did that pretty embarrassed flush that Steve had seen on his face far too many times and ran a hand through his hair.

Finally, Bucky awkwardly said, “Oh. I’m very sorry. I had no idea that Steve wasn’t alone. I hope that I didn’t interrupt anything important.”

There it was again. That drastic shift between in-public-Bucky and _Steve’s_ Bucky. (Not that Bucky was actually Steve’s at all but, well. That was how Steve distinguished them in his mind, anyways.) Steve felt his eyes narrow at the realization of it. Instead of bringing it up, though- considering that Bucky would likely dodge any questions Steve asked, just like he always did- he watched Bucky carefully, trying to figure out why, exactly, Bucky kept doing that.

“Oh, uh.” Sam blinked at Bucky. He looked especially confused. It was really fucking funny, actually, and Steve couldn’t help the snort of laughter that escaped him. “No, it’s alright. We weren’t talking about anything _th_ _at_ important. You were the one who was texting Steve just a couple minutes ago?”

Bucky smiled sheepishly. “I was, yes. I glanced over at your table and thought I recognized him, so I texted him asking if he was here. He didn’t respond, though, so I came to check and see if it was him. I did not realize that he wasn’t alone.”

“Oh, right,” Sam agreed.

There was a long awkward silence, that Steve spent smiling (like an idiot) at Bucky. Bucky gave him a small smile back, the slightest hint of a blush still resting on his cheeks. Sam didn’t interrupt their weird smile-stare vibe, but Steve figured that he probably wanted to.

Finally, Sam cleared his throat and said, “So, uh. How do you two know each other?”

“We met at my ma’s birthday gala a few weeks ago.” Steve looked away from Bucky- it had to happen at some point, right? It was bordering on weird now- and shrugged at Sam. “Became good friends. You know the drill.”

“Um.” Sam made a face at him. “Sure, I guess. And you’re... You two...?”

Disbelief colored Sam’s words, and, normally, Steve would have tried to protest at the implication. There was an awful feeling in his gut, though- a kind of twisting, horrible, ugly thing- and he couldn’t even bring himself to think of words, much less want to say any out loud.

Bucky looked at him, oddly hesitant, and then turned back to Sam and said, “We, uh. No. I’m... I’m engaged, actually.”

A startled look made itself plain on Sam’s face as he let his eyes dart back and forth between Bucky and Steve.

Everything was awkward now. It was really awkward.

“Okay. Uh, that’s good, then.” Sam blinked a bit. “Uh... Engaged, huh? How’s that working out for you.”

There was a stiffness to Bucky’s shoulders and a blank sort of hollowness to his smile. His face looked as if he should be feeling happy and, yet, there was something very cold about his entire being, and Steve really wasn’t sure how he felt about it. It was uncomfortable for him, yes, but it seemed to be even worse for Bucky. It was a feeling Steve couldn’t even imagine. He didn’t think he even wanted to try.

“It’s going well, thank you.” With that said, the smile dropped almost entirely off Bucky’s face. He took a few seconds to gather himself before he turned to Steve, relaxing into a cheerful expression.

“So,” Steve said hesitantly. “Um. Bucky, this is Sam. He’s my best friend. And Sam... This is Bucky.”

Sam nodded, shrugging a bit. Bucky tensed up again and sent a forced smile in Sam’s direction.

“Nice to meet you, man,” Sam said easily.

Bucky stared at him blankly. “The pleasure is all mine.”

Steve decided approximately point two seconds later that this conversation was uncomfortable as all fuck. There was too much tension in the span of this small table, and it left Steve shifting around in an attempt to try and find a way to sit that didn’t convey the awkwardness he was feeling. It really wasn’t working out. At all.

“Hey, so, are we studying at all today or are we just going to stare at each other?” Sam asked, sending a dry look in Steve’s direction. Steve rolled his eyes, flipping Sam off.

“We’ll get to it in a minute,” Steve said. “I promise we will.”

Sam looked like he didn’t believe any of Steve’s bullshit, which really wasn’t surprising. What was more surprising, though, was the look on Bucky’s face. Over the past few weeks of their friendship, Steve had seen Bucky in varying forms of his in public persona as well as his private persona. There was something about him now, though, that didn’t lend itself to either of those. Instead, he was just sitting there, stiff and awkward, looking completely blank and uninterested in everything around him.

The worst part about it, though, was the only slightly concealed rage that sparked in his stormy eyes.

Steve reached a hand out towards Bucky before awkwardly deciding that might not be the best idea. He set his hands back in his lap and bit down hard on his bottom lip.

“Buck? You okay?”

Bucky’s head jerked around and his eyes hardened just a bit. “I’m fine, Steve.”

“Okay. Yeah.”

Steve wasn’t sure he’d call this _fine_  even, but there wasn’t really a good way for him to disagree with Bucky, at this point. Not without making this even more awkward, at least- and that was something that Steve definitely didn’t want to try and deal with.

“ _So_ ,” Steve said abruptly. He turned to Sam, shaking off his confusion at Bucky’s behavior in order to smile brightly at his best friend. “How’s Maria?”

“Oh hey, man, fuck off.”

Steve bit back laughter, making a face back at Sam. “I just want to hear about your girlfriend, Sam. I gotta make sure you’re treating each other right.”

Sam frowned at him. “Shouldn’t you be making sure I treat her right?”

“Um.” Steve pursed his lips, giving Sam a look that he hoped conveyed a _what the fuc_ _k_ kind of expression. “Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean she can’t treat you poorly.”

It was probably a good thing that Sam was used to Steve’s antics because he just rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

A grin split across Steve’s face. “Oh, I know,” he agreed. “But you have to use every opportunity you’re given to ensure that the world is an equal place for everyone, Sam.”

“You’re an asshole,” Sam said.

Steve just shrugged. Sam definitely wasn’t wrong.

“Oh,” Bucky said quietly.

Blinking slowly, Steve turned to look at his friend. His coldness seemed to have dissipated entirely, and he had relaxed back into his chair. Everything about him seemed languorous now, from the way his shoulders slumped against the back of his chair to the way his limbs were now sprawled out and taking up as much space as possible. It was a striking difference from the closed off anger that had seemed to contain him before. Now, Bucky seemed effortless, a charming sort of sleepiness to his behavior.

Sam seemed entirely thrown by the change in Bucky’s behavior. Steve figured he would be more surprised by it as well if he hadn’t watched Bucky do things like this before.

“Oh what?” Sam glanced at Steve, arching an eyebrow. Steve shrugged.

Bucky just smiled, lazy and full of teeth. “Sorry. Just got lost in my head. How long have you and your girlfriend been together?”

The mask Bucky seemed to be wearing now was a complete one-eighty from the way he’d been acting just a few minutes ago, and Sam seemed to be unable to entirely process the quick switch in personality. The look of complete confusion on his face was honestly amusing but also understandable. Steve wasn’t entirely sure how he should react to Bucky either, sometimes.

There were times when Steve figured it was better to just go along with it, but there were also times that he had to bite his tongue to stop from asking too many questions. Chief among them: _what had caused Bucky to act like this? What was he so afraid of?_

Steve didn’t think those questions would go over well with Bucky.

“Maria and I have been together for almost two years,” Sam said. He smiled, an unbidden, bright kind of smile that Steve had long ago dubbed his _Maria smile_. “It’s been amazing. She’s amazing.”

Bucky seemed to soften even more, then, a bit of his laziness fading as he sat up a bit straighter. “That’s good. Um. Yeah. It seems like you two have a really healthy relationship. Those are always... Good.”

“... Yeah,” Sam agreed. “They are.”

Bucky’s hands hovered awkwardly in the air before he reached up and pushed his hair out of his face.

Steve really wasn’t sure what was going on anymore.

“Right,” Bucky said abruptly. A sheepish look crossed his face. “Um. I’m really sorry for interrupting you two. I should probably get going. I’m... Yeah. I have to head home now.”

Sam arched an eyebrow. “Well, okay. It was nice to meet you, man.”

“It was nice to meet you too,” Bucky said, smiling a small little smile over at Sam. “Um. I’ll talk to you later, Steve. Yeah?” The smile was then directed at Steve. But before Steve could even bring himself to reply, Bucky up and leaving the library, never once slowing down his pace.

Steve glanced at Sam. “Um. I’m gonna... Yeah, I’ll be right back, okay? I promise. Just let me go make sure he’s okay after... whatever happened earlier.”

“Yeah.” Sam nodded. “That seems like a good idea. I’ll watch your stuff.”

“Thanks.”

Steve stood up so quickly from the table he almost knocked his chair over, but he managed to move to the hallway without making too much noise and took off- at the least noisy power-walk he could manage in the library- after Bucky.

When he got outside he found Bucky sitting on the bench at the base of the stairs, his backpack settled next to him and a morose look on his face.

“Buck,” Steve said. Bucky looked up at him, surprise written across his face. “Hey. Are you okay?”

Bucky blinked a few times. Eventually, he scooted over just a bit and let Steve settle next to him on the bench. “Um. Hi. I’m... Yeah, I’m okay. Don’t worry about it, yeah?”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Bucky waved a hand around vaguely and shook his head a few times. His hair flopped in his face in a way that was a little too cute to be at all okay. “I’m... Look, I’m sorry for worrying you earlier. I’m not real good at being in public sometimes, especially ever since I came here. It makes me nervous. I feel like everyone’s judging me all the time. And I felt so out of place here.”

Steve frowned. “Here?” He repeated dumbly. “In the library?”

Bucky turned bright red. It would be adorable, Steve thought, if he didn’t look almost close to tears as well.

“I...” Bucky trailed off, shrugging helplessly. “I thought going someplace new would be comforting or something. And I always liked libraries back home, when I went to them with my family. But I just... Um. I never went to Uni. So I think, uh. I think that stresses me out about being here. And I’m... I’m twenty years old and I’m engaged to a man who’s twice my age and really fucking rich. I feel like I always have to play this character that isn’t me in public. And I also always feel like people are judging me.”

Steve’s heart was in his throat. “ _Bucky_ ,” he said. “Nobody’s going to judge you, okay?”

“You know that’s not true.” A rueful, tired smile tugged Bucky’s lips upwards. “Steve. Anyone who barely knew me would judge me for all of my life choices.”

“Hey.” Steve reached out- he didn’t hesitate, not this time- and grabbed ahold of Bucky’s hand. He ignored the startled look on Bucky’s face and clutched the other man’s hand in both of his own. He ducked down a little to stare Bucky right in the eyes, hoping to convey exactly how earnest he was. “Look at me, Bucky. C’mon.”

Bucky’s eyes flickered around nervously, but, finally, he settled in on Steve and swallowed. Another small smile tugged his lips upwards, and it was such a beautiful look that Steve just wanted to hold him for a minute.

Fuck. Nope. He wasn’t going to think about that.

“Buck,” Steve said, sighing quietly. “So what if people judge you? It sucks. I know. But they’re going to do it no matter what they know about you. It’s awful and I wish it didn’t happen, but everyone does it.”

“You’re really shit at trying to make me feel better,” Bucky grumbled, but Steve could hear the smile in his voice.

Steve rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “I wasn’t finished, pal.”

They were quiet, just briefly. Bucky watched him, serious and silent, before he nodded. Steve took that as an indication that he was allowed to continue, so he smiled at Bucky and took a deep breath.

“What you’ve got to do, Buck, is you’ve got to go out and prove every single one of them wrong. You think about all the things that people might say about you, and then you give them ten other things that are impressive about you to see. I know you can. And you know you can too. So go do it, babe.”

Some voice in the back of Steve’s head started screaming: _Did you just say_ babe _? What the hell are you thinking?_

He forced himself not to react, though. He just smiled confidently at Bucky. It seemed to work, considering the fact that Bucky just blinked at him a few times before he smiled.

“You think so?”

Steve grinned at Bucky, pulling back just slightly. “I know so, Buck.”

Bucky smiled so wide and brilliant that it took Steve’s breath away, and before he could even process  _t_ _hat_ , he was wrapped up in Bucky’s arms and it was hard to  _breathe_.

This was probably a weird time to notice that Bucky smelled nice. Like fresh linen and the morning after a rainstorm and something citrusy and something so very  _Bucky_.

(Yeah. This was weird.)

A car pulled up to the curb a few seconds later and Bucky jerked backward. The moment wasn’t ruined, though, not even close, because Bucky just beamed up at him, his cheeks a soft rosy color.

“Thank you, Steve,” Bucky said.

Steve smiled, nodding. “Of course, Buck. Don’t worry about it.”

Bucky took a few steps towards the car before he turned back and winked at Steve. “I’ll talk to you later, yeah?”

“Obviously.”

“Now go fucking study, Rogers.”

And, even though Bucky was leaving, Steve couldn’t help but laugh.

_. . ._

**_Steve:_ ** Oh, and thanks for earlier, by the way.

 ** _Bucky:_** for what? i’m the one who should be thanking you.

 ** _Steve:_** You distracted Sam. He was giving me a lecture about my future and how I needed to stop avoiding my problems. You know. The likes.

 ** _Bucky:_** well. he’s not wrong, Steve.

 ** _Steve:_** Doesn’t mean it’s easy to listen to.

 ** _Bucky:_** yeah.

 ** _Bucky:_** yeah, i know what you mean.

 ** _Steve:_** Yeah?

 ** _Steve:_**...

 **_Steve:_ ** Buck? You okay? You just kind of disappeared there, pal.

 **_Bucky:_ ** huh?

 **_Steve:_ ** It’s been an hour, pal.

 ** _Bucky:_** oh. sorry about that, steve.

 ** _Bucky:_** yeah. i’m okay. i promise.

_. . ._

“Do you ever sometimes wonder how different your life would be if one moment hadn’t happened?” Bucky asked, his voice slow and languid, the softest of whispers against the breeze of the night.

Steve turned his head to look at Bucky. The question had come completely out of left field but, at the very least, it hadn’t ruined the peaceful atmosphere around them. It was one of those existential questions that, at a time like this- when two people were sprawled out across the hood of a car, just staring up at the stars and quietly talking- seemed appropriate to talk about.

“Yeah, all the time,” Steve said. “I, um. I wonder what my life would be like if my dad hadn’t died. Or if I was still sick all the time like I used to be. Or... Or if my mom hadn’t become president. Or if my mom hadn’t remarried.”

Bucky was quiet, just watching him. He looked beautiful in the starlight, everything about him soft against the darkness, barely illuminated but still standing out so starkly from the blackness of the night around them.

“I think about what my life would be like if I hadn’t met Alexander,” Bucky said quietly. “And I think about what my life would be like if I hadn’t met you.”

Steve swallowed, fighting the urge to let his mouth drop open in surprise.

“Me?” He repeated.

Bucky smiled, raising a hand to his mouth to cover up his laughter. “Yeah, Steve. You. You’re, uh. You’re my best friend, pal.”

“Best friend?” Steve repeated. He couldn’t manage to bite back the smile that overtook his face. “I’m your best friend?”

The gray in Bucky’s eyes looked ever so slightly softer in the starlight. It made his eyes look even more blue than they normally did, and they looked absolutely beautiful. The knowledge that those eyes were watching him as closely as they were made his stomach twist up in knots.

“Yeah,” Bucky said softly. “I, um. I never had a best friend before. And I always wondered what it was like but... I think this is what it’s got to feel like, right?”

Steve smiled, turning his face upwards so he could stare at the stars again. “Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “I’m pretty sure this is what it feels like.”

He tactfully chose not to add, _I’m not entirely sure this is what just-best-friends feels like_.

(His crush on Bucky was becoming a major problem.)

“Thanks for asking me to come out here with you,” Bucky said. “I’m glad I could. It’s really peaceful.”

Steve smiled, shrugging a bit. “I’m glad you could too, Buck. It’s never any fun to come out here by myself.”

“Have you come out here with other people a lot?” Bucky asked. Steve turned his head again to look at Bucky, but Bucky was facing skywards again. Steve contented himself with staring blankly at the side of Bucky’s face. It didn’t do much in terms of giving him any indication as to what Bucky was feeling, but it was enough to comfort Steve, just a bit.

Steve shook his head before remembering that Bucky couldn’t see him. He did an awkward little shimmy and grimaced. “No, not really. My dad used to take me out here a lot. But he died a while ago.”

That caused Bucky to look at him, his face gentle and sorrowful all at once. He didn’t say _I’m sorry_ , though. That was one of the things Steve had decided he liked best about Bucky. He never reacted to situations the way the majority of people did. Bucky Barnes was just a breath of fresh air.

Steve had always hated that metaphor. (It sounded weird.)

“Tell me about him,” Bucky requested quietly.

Steve blinked. “Wh-What?”

“Tell me about your dad,” Bucky repeated. He smiled at Steve, then, and Steve still couldn’t do anything other than blink dumbly. “Talking about people is the best way to keep them alive. And if your father was as wonderful as you seem to think he was, then he deserves to be kept alive.”

All Steve could do was breathe out, “Oh.”

Bucky shifted, biting down on his bottom lip. He looked almost embarrassed. “Or not,” he settled on. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to.”

“No,” Steve blurted out. “Shit, no. Sorry, I was just... I was surprised, I guess.”

“Okay.”

Steve cleared his throat. His hands were shaking with nerves, and he couldn’t bring himself to watch Bucky’s face when he talked about his dad, so he turned his eyes back to the stars.

It would be easier to talk to any part of his dad that might still be listening when he did this.

“I always thought my dad was so brave, you know? He always seemed so strong and he seemed to always stand up for what he believed in. I thought that he was one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known. And he was good at his job. He... He really cared about people. It was amazing to see. Ever since he died, I’ve spent my whole life trying to live up to the future that he always talked about my family having.”

Bucky was quiet before he said, “sometimes things don’t work out like people plan them.”

Steve sighed. “I know. I’ve always known that. I guess... I guess I just figured that if there was some piece of him out there that was still watching me, then I’d want him to be proud of me.”

A hand reached over and came to rest on top of Steve’s. The touch was startlingly warm against the coolness of the night, and it was more comforting than Steve had ever thought it would be.

“I’m sure he’d be proud of you, Steve.”

Normally, Steve would agree, but, in this moment, he thought that if his dad could see him now he might not know what to think of him, anymore.

Here was Steve, settled on the hood of a car at midnight with the person he had a crush on- who was engaged to someone else- as he wasted his life away by pretending that he wanted to be a politician when, really, it was the last thing he’d ever wanted.

Steve didn’t think there was much of him to be proud of, right now.

He turned his head again, meeting Bucky’s gaze. There was something intense in those eyes that Steve was coming to adore more than anything else, and something about it made him squirm.

“I don’t know, Buck,” he finally said. “But thank you.”

“Of course,” Bucky whispered. His eyes fluttered shut, then, and the smallest of smiles pulled his lips upwards. “Anything.”

_. . ._

**_Steve:_** Hey are you busy tomorrow?

 ** _Bucky:_** um. i don’t think so?

 ** _Bucky:_** why do you ask?

 **_Steve:_ ** Well. Okay. So I’ve been working on this art project and I’m not really big about showing that stuff to my family because I still haven’t talked to my mom about switching majors sooooo

 ** _Bucky:_** so is this your casual way of asking me to come judge your art for you?

 **_Steve:_ ** I mean... Yeah essentially.

 ** _Bucky:_** ok cool tell me when, pal

 **_Steve:_ ** You free tomorrow at like four?

 **_Bucky:_ ** um... yeah, i think i should be. sure, pal.

 **_Bucky:_ ** do i need like some special pass to get me into the White House or am i going to some lame ass college dorm or what?

 **_Steve:_ ** Nah I only had to stay in a dorm last year. I’ll let the security people know you’re coming and they’ll let you in.

 **_Bucky:_ ** damn, you sound like such a lame ass rich guy right now.

 **_Steve:_ ** Stop it.

 **_Bucky:_ ** you wanna be my sugar daddy?

 ** _Steve:_** Please just stop talking.

_. . ._

It had taken all of two minutes of being inside the White House for Bucky to take off his shoes and slide around the hallways in his socks like the five-year-old he actually was.

Steve rolled his eyes as Bucky skidded past him yet again, barely managing to stop himself from crashing into the wall.

The whole thing was ridiculous. And a little bit cute, maybe, but Steve wasn’t going to ever admit to thinking that. Nope.

Bucky threw his arms out as he slumped back against the wall, his cheeks a little flushed- it really was so fucking unfair that Steve always looked like a fucking tomato when he blushed but Bucky just looked  _delicate_ \- and grinned wildly at Steve.

“This is really fun,” Bucky declared. “Have you ever done this before?”

“Yeah.” Steve arched an eyebrow and bit back a grin. “When I was _ten_ , Buck.”

Bucky shrugged that ever-mischievous look in his eyes again. “You’re no fun,” Bucky declared. “You’ve got to loosen up, Rogers. Live a little.”

“I’m living just fine right now, thank you very much.”

Bucky just made a face at him. “ _Boring_.”

“Yeah, I know.” Steve grinned at him. He picked Bucky’s shoes up off the tile and walked past him. “Come on. You promised me you’d judge my painting, right?”

“I did.” Bucky caught up to him, falling in step at his side. “What if I hate it? What are you going to do then?”

Steve paused for a second, pretending to think about Bucky’s words, and then shrugged. “Cry.”

A snort exploded from Bucky. “You dick.”

Steve grabbed Bucky’s arm and steered the both of them towards his room. He tried his best to hide his grin, but it was kind of an impossible task to  _not_ smile when he was around Bucky.

“That’s me,” he agreed.

When they reached the door to Steve’s room, he quickly opened the door so that the two of them could slip inside without making too much noise.

“Wow, how clandestine of you,” Bucky said, his smirk obvious in his voice.

Steve turned back to look at him and rolled his eyes dramatically, just to see the way that Bucky tried to fight back his smile before he eventually lost and it brightened the entirety of his being.

It was adorable.

Steve really needed to stop thinking that about Bucky. It was causing him enough problems already.

“Stop being mean to me,” Steve demanded.

Bucky just gave him a look that definitely meant  _why the fuck would I do that?_

(Steve’s life was really hard.)

Sighing, he turned to his closet, opening up the door and moving things aside so he could grab the painting from where he’d hidden it behind several articles of clothing and a few things strewn on the ground. It probably looked ridiculous to Bucky, yes, but Steve deemed it as worthwhile- he really, really didn’t want to explain it all to his mom before he figured out what exactly he wanted to say to her- so he didn’t really care about any criticism or snorts the hiding spot would inspire.

Bucky didn’t say anything, though. It was almost a little surprising but, then again, Bucky wasn’t Sam.

Thank fuck for that.

“Okay!” Steve whirled around, holding the painting up correctly so Bucky could see it. “Here we go.”

The room was silent, then, as Bucky stared at the painting, his eyes carefully analyzing every last detail of it. The concentration in his expression made Steve want to smile, so he bit down on his bottom lip as hard as he possibly could to stop himself from grinning like a loon.

Finally, Bucky took a step back and seemed to soften just a bit. He looked up at Steve, his lips pulled into a smile. “It’s beautiful, Steve.”

“You think so?”

“I know so, pal.”

If he was ever asked about it, Steve would definitely deny the fact that the words made him feel a little tingly. There was a fluttering in his stomach that he willingly elected to ignore. Instead, he smiled at Bucky, his cheeks aching with the force of it and watched as Bucky grinned back, his eyes crinkling at the edges.

“What’s your favorite part about it?” Steve asked.

“Oh.” Bucky paused.

He rocked back on his heels and crossed his arms across his chest as he analyzed the painting one more time. He looked so intensely at it that Steve could almost see the art he’d created reflected in Bucky’s eyes. The color of Bucky’s eyes was far prettier than the ones he’d put on his pallet, but Steve figured that was because there was no other color that was really like Bucky’s eyes.

Bucky said quietly, “I really like the detail of the stars. You painted all the constellations so they were in the correct place, didn’t you?”

“I did.” Steve ducked his head to hide his blush. “I’m glad you noticed.”

“The coloring is beautiful too,” Bucky added. He turned a bit and smiled up at Steve, so big and so wide that his eyes sparkled with it and his face glowed.

Fuck, he was beautiful.

Steve melted a little, both at the compliments and at the look on Bucky’s face.

“Thank you,” he finally settled on saying. His stomach was a mess of fluttery feelings that Steve couldn’t even bring himself to think about. “So, um. You like it, then?”

The question seemed to startle Bucky because he spent a few minutes staring up at Steve with wide eyes and a slightly shocked expression.

Once he gathered himself, he said, “Steve, it’s gorgeous. I love it.”

“Thank you,” Steve said again because, really, there was nothing else to say. Nothing that would mean enough, anyways.

At that very moment, of course, because life hated him, there was a knock on his door.

Steve froze, staring down at the painting in his hands. From the hallway outside, Clint called, “Hey, Steve! Are you in there? Your mom was wondering if you wanted to have dinner with the rest of us.”

Raising his head slowly, Steve met Bucky’s eyes, feeling a little horrified. Bucky shrugged, motioning with his hand. Steve just stared at him blankly. He really didn’t know what that specific series of hand waves meant, but he figured Bucky was trying to tell him something.

Bucky rolled his eyes. He leaned into Steve and hissed, “Go put the painting away and I’ll go get the door.”

Hurriedly, Steve moved to do just that. He bustled into the closet, shutting the door behind him. He paused and took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself down. Just as he moved to hide the painting back where it had been earlier, he heard the door to his room open.

“Um,” Clint’s voice said. “Hi. Can I help you? What are you doing in Steve’s room?”

“Oh!” Bucky’s voice replied. His _I’m-an-innocent-confused-and-polite-little-foreigner-please-help-me_ tone was back full force. Steve felt a spark of amusement in his chest. “I’m very sorry. Ah, Steve invited me. He said he wanted my help with a project he has to do for one of his classes. If you all are going to have a family dinner, however, I would be more than happy to leave. I would never want to interrupt something like that.”

“Sorry,” Clint said suddenly, “who are you?”

Steve bit back a snort. He finished hiding the painting and made his way out of his closet, one of his hoodies in hand. It was a bit of a lame cover-up as to why he’d been hiding in the closet, but it was better than nothing.

“I’m James Barnes.” Bucky’s face was literally pure innocence and it was making it really hard for Steve to hold in his laughter. “I’m one of Steve’s friends.”

“We met at mom’s birthday party, Clint.” Steve added. “I asked him to come over. I didn’t know we were doing dinner so early tonight.”

Clint seemed a little thrown. Steve wasn’t sure if it was because Steve was really bad at friends- his only real friend was Sam, in the end. Everyone else was just people he was friendly with, and that was a huge difference- or if it was because Steve rarely invited people over to the White House. While the place had been Steve’s home for a majority of his life, it had always seemed kind of obscene. Steve had always felt uncomfortable inviting people home.

And, yet, here was Bucky Barnes.

“Um.” Clint blinked a bit. “Yeah, my dad’s flying out in a couple hours, remember?”

“Oh.” Steve nodded. “Shit, yeah. Sorry, I totally forgot. Um. I’ll come down.”

Clint glanced between the two of them for a moment before he offered, “I’ll go ask your mom if it’s okay if James eats with us.”

That seemed to startle Bucky. Steve wasn’t sure if he was just surprised or a bit uncomfortable as well, but he finally smiled and said, “Thank you.”

As the door shut behind him, Steve turned to look at Bucky, hesitation written across his face. “That is okay with you, right? You’re okay with staying to eat?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, a small smile grew on his face. “I don’t have anywhere to be for a while, I don’t think. So, um. If your family is okay with it then I’d love to eat with you all.”

Steve’s stomach probably shouldn’t have clenched in excitement at that, but it did. He decided that he was going to think about that later. Not now. Definitely not now.

Instead, he just shrugged. “I don’t know why my Ma would say no.”

Almost as if his words had summoned it, Steve’s phone let out a bright  _d_ _ing_ and he glanced down to see Clint’s contact name (which Steve had so eloquently put as  _asshole archer_ , because he was lame as fuck) next to a text that read: _she said it’s all good. I would’ve come back up to tell you, but it was a really long walk._

Steve narrowed his eyes, his nose scrunching up. What a fucking idiot.

Nevertheless, he looked up at Bucky and smiled. “Yeah, they said it’s okay.”

“Okay,” Bucky agreed. Something in his eyes brightened, and he beamed up at Steve. “Let’s go, then.”

Bucky gathered up his bag that he’d brought with him, slinging it over his shoulder and as they moved into the hallway. They reached the bottom of the stairs and moved into the dining room where Clint and Harold were both standing, chatting to each other.

Harold startled a bit at the sight of Bucky. When Steve turned to Bucky to try and figure out, why, exactly, that was, he noticed that Bucky was stiff. His movements were bordering on kind of robotic. It looked painful, almost, and Steve wanted to ask if he was okay, but he also figured that Bucky didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

“Ah,” Harold said brightly. “Senator Pierce’s fiance, yes?”

A bland smile wrote itself across Bucky’s face. “James Barnes. Yes. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Congressmen Barton. Alexander speaks very highly of you.”

There was a kind of dead look in Bucky’s eyes that Steve decided he really didn’t like.

“Well, Senator Pierce is a very good man. I think very highly of him as well.”

Bucky laughed, then- an awful, awkwardly fake laugh- and nodded. “He is. Indeed.”

The tension in the room was horrible, palpable and strong, when- suddenly- Sarah entered, bustling in and smiling at every single one of them. It caused some of the awkwardness to drain out of the room and everyone seemed to relax.

“Hello, dear,” Sarah said brightly. “You must be Mr. Barnes, right?”

“Oh. Please just call me James, ma’am.” Bucky folded his hands in front of him, smiling at Sarah in return. “Mr. Barnes makes me sound old.”

Steve watched as his mother smiled and laughed- her real laugh, too, not the fake one she often used during political events- nodding. “James it is,” she agreed easily. “Are you going to stay and have dinner with us this evening?”

“If you’ll have me then I’d love to.” Bucky was as polite as ever, but Steve didn’t miss the way he looked at every single one of them, his resting a few hesitations longer on Harold.

Steve felt himself frown as he racked his brain for reasons to explain Bucky’s sudden antsy behavior. Maybe it was because Harold was friends with Pierce and he was afraid that anything he said or did would get reported back to his fiance. It seemed a bit far-fetched, in Steve’s mind, but he was also well aware that Pierce’s relationship with Bucky wasn’t as hunky dory as Bucky described it as when he was pressed to.

“We’d love to have you,” Sarah said, her smile that warm motherly one that Steve adored, and Bucky ducked his head to hide his own smile.

They settled in, Steve carefully seating himself directly next to Bucky. Just as he was about to start to fill his plate up with food, a loud buzz startled him and caused him to drop his plate.

Next to him, Bucky jumped.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I’ll just turn that off,” Bucky said hurriedly. He reached into his pocket and pulled his phone out, only to freeze when he saw the caller ID on the screen.

Steve frowned. “Buck?”

Bucky looked a little pale, now, but he looked up at them and smiled politely as he said, “I’m sorry. I have to take this. I’ll, um. I’ll just step outside, if you don’t mind. I’m so sorry for the interruption.”

He was way too jittery, and Steve eyed him as he practically ran out of the room while answering his phone. The entire room was left in silence as Bucky closed the door, cutting off everything after his harried greeting of  _hello, sir_.

“Hm,” Harold spoke suddenly. He was staring at the door, his eyes narrowed. “What an odd boy.”

Steve couldn’t help but bristle. While he agreed that Bucky  _was_ a little bit odd, he wasn’t going to allow anyone else to call Bucky that.

So, he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest defensively. “He’s not odd.”

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way,” Harold said easily. He waved a hand at Steve. “Being odd isn’t a bad thing. It just means he’s... Different.”

That really didn’t sound much better, in the end, but Steve wasn’t sure what he could say to get Harold to stop talking. Sometimes, it seemed like that was an impossible task.

The door to the dining room swung open again and Bucky walked back in, looking about five times smaller than he had before, his shoulders hunched inwards. He seemed to be even paler now than he had been when he answered the phone. Concern grappled up inside of Steve.

“I’m very sorry,” Bucky said quietly. “I, ah. I must return home. Thank you for inviting me to stay for dinner. It was very kind of you to offer, and it was a pleasure to meet all of you.” He smiled, rueful and tired, and waved at them all slowly. “Enjoy your meal. And Steve, um. Thank you for inviting me over today. Feel free to continue to message me, yes?”

Steve nodded, frowning a bit at Bucky. “Yeah, of course I will, Buck.”

“Goodbye,” Bucky said one more time. He shot Steve a small smile and then he was exiting the room again, leaving just as much silence in his wake as he had the first time he’d left.

Harold snorted. “See? Odd. I swear.”

And that was the end of the discussion of Bucky Barnes for the rest of dinner, even though Steve sat silently at the table, unable to get his mind off of him.

_. . ._

**_Steve:_** Hey. Are you okay?

 **_Bucky:_ ** yeah, of course. why wouldn’t i be?

 **_Steve:_ ** I was just kind of worried. You looked kind of freaked out by that phone call earlier.

 ** _Bucky:_** oh. um. yeah. it’s whatever. i’m okay.

 **_Steve:_ ** You promise?

 **_Bucky:_ ** i pinky promise.

 ** _Steve:_** Fuck you’re hardcore.

 ** _Bucky:_** don’t you know it, babe.

 ** _Bucky:_**... hey, steve?

 **_Bucky:_ ** can I ask you something?

_. . ._

It was two am yet again, and Steve was awake after finishing his political science homework. Again.

Steve really needed to figure out how to do work without procrastinating until the last possible second. Then again, it was kind of unlikely that he’d ever stop himself from procrastinating. Oh well.

He glanced up from the books he had sprawled out across the table and sighed. The television had been playing for hours. Last he had checked, some black and white movie had been playing and now- was that _Pride and Prejudice_? Who the fuck was awake to watch the _Pride and_ fucking  _Prejudice_ movie at two in the morning?

Steve left it on.

Mostly because Matthew Macfadyen was working the period look, but that was kind of beside the point.

After a short silence, a figure settled next to him on the couch. Steve didn’t look up- he didn’t need to, really- but he leaned into the other person anyways. He left his shoulder rest gently against the one next to him, his eyes fluttering shut. He was tired, and if he fell asleep here and now then he didn’t think anyone would be able to blame him for that.

Then a voice asked, “You’re rather close with James Barnes, aren’t you?”

Steve turned his head to look at his mother. The light of the images flashing across the television did odd things to the pallor of her skin, but she was beautiful still, a striking image in the darkness of the room. When she smiled at him gently, her hand reaching out to brush through his hair, Steve melted into the couch, sighing softly.

“I... Yes, I am,” Steve replied. “I’d like to think we’re really good friends, anyhow.”

Sarah hummed, her fingers working through a small tangle in Steve’s hair before she pulled away and settled next to him on the couch.”Does he talk about Senator Pierce often, then?”

The question likely shouldn’t have been surprising, but Steve felt almost thrown by it. His eyes widened almost comically, and he turned to look at his mother.

“He, uh.” Steve paused, frowning a bit. “He doesn’t really talk about him at all, actually.”

Steve hadn’t even thought about that, but it certainly was rather odd. Bucky  _was_ engaged to Alexander Pierce and, no matter how weird Steve thought that whole situation was, it didn’t make much sense that Bucky never talked about his fiance at all.

Sarah sat up ever so slightly straighter, a frown on her lips. “At all?”

“Um...” Steve trailed off, his brow furrowing. He couldn’t remember a time Bucky had ever said anything about Pierce to him. The last time Bucky had mentioned his fiance had been the night the two of them met. Now, whenever they spent time together, it seemed as if Bucky did everything he could to avoid speaking about the other man. If their conversation topic got too close to politics or anything to do with the upcoming election, Bucky always seemed to find a way to change it as quickly as possible.

Steve hadn’t realized how unnatural that was until now.

“No,” Steve finally settled on. “I don’t think we’ve talked about his engagement at all. I don’t even know how they met or, um, any of the circumstances surrounding it. I... I asked him the night we first met and he kind of dodged the question. Even now he changes the topic of conversation when we start talking about anything that could lead to me asking questions about Senator Pierce.”

“Hm.” Sarah’s lips pinched down, her brow furrowing inwards. Her face lacked the uncertainty that Steve felt in the pit of his stomach. Instead, his mother just seemed intensely focused. “That’s a bit... odd.”

Odd was probably a good word for it, but Steve couldn’t even find the words to voice the sentiment. Something was wrong with the entire situation. He didn’t know what it was, but he felt it twisting at his insides whenever he thought about Bucky’s engagement. His mother was moving around the blankets on the couch and the television show was yammering away in the background, but all Steve could focus on was Bucky’s forced smile and his voice saying, _“It’s very beneficial to both of us."_

“I don’t ever know what to think about it.” The admittance burst out of him before he could stop it. Steve bit down on his bottom lip harshly as his mother turned to look at him. “He... He always seems so uncomfortable talking about it, but I don’t know why. And I... I don’t want to bring it up if it’s only going to upset him but I also... I want to help him, Ma."

Sarah nodded, looking entirely unsurprised by the words. “I know. You always want to help everyone, Steve. And I’m sure you’ll find a way to if you put your mind to it.”

Steve wrinkled his nose, tilting his head back against the couch to stare at his mother. She just smiled at him, a mischievous light in her eyes. Steve rubbed at his face to chase away the fuzziness at the edges of his vision. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he forced out, a yawn escaping him shortly after the words.

“It means that you’re a stubborn little shit, Steve.”

Laughter burst from Steve’s lungs before he could even try to think about containing himself. He probably should try and stay quiet, considering it was two in the morning and everyone else was likely asleep, but he couldn’t help himself.

“That’s not news, Ma.”

“No,” his mother agreed, a peaceful smile on her face. “I knew you’d turn out to be a pain in my ass when you punched Bobby Higgins and gave him a bloody nose on your first day of kindergarten.”

Steve made a face. “Bobby Higgins was a smug asshole who kept stealing everyone’s blocks so he could kick them at people.”

Sarah laughed and said, “See?”

“Ma.” Steve was pretty sure he was blushing, now, so he ducked his head. Hopefully his mother had yet to see his blush, because he knew that she would tease him about it. Not that he really minded, of course, but Sarah had plenty of things to tease Steve about already. It wasn’t like she needed any more material.

Instead of teasing him, though, his mother just laughed, all warm and pleasant.

“Steve,” she finally said. “You’ll figure out a way to help him. I know you will. That’s what you do. You see someone who needs help and you go and help them. Always.”

Steve’s breath caught in his throat. Part of him yearned to say, _“Ma, I don’t want to be a politician_ ,” but the words didn’t come, and he sat there, hands clenched into his lap, smiling at his mother.

It was enough, for now.

In his head he repeated: _Soon._

(He ignored that voice, the one that said, _Soon can mean never if you continue to push it off, you know._ )

It wasn’t worth ruining the moment. It wasn’t.

Once again, Steve dutifully ignored the part of him that said  _but maybe it is._

“Thanks, Ma,” he settled on. “I love you.”

His mother smiled- that gentle, beautiful smile that made Steve’s stomach settle a bit- and ruined the moment by reaching out to ruffle his hair.

Steve made a face, pulling away from her, and whined. “Ma, come _on_.”

Sarah- of course- just laughed at him. “Go to bed, Steven.”

“Yes, Ma,” Steve said. He leaned in, pressed a kiss to her cheek, and bit down on his smile. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Just as he reached the end of the hall, Steve turned on his heel. “I love you, Ma.”

Sarah’s smile only widened, her eyes soft. “I love you too, baby.”

“Goodnight, Ma.” Steve nodded, tried his best to hide a yawn- because damn it, he wasn’t about to give his Ma something to be smug about right now- and made his way down the hall to his room. He had classes tomorrow, after all. If he was going to try and stay awake during his boring ass American History class, then Steve needed to go to sleep as soon as possible.

(He’d still probably fall asleep anyway, though.)

_. . ._

**_Bucky:_ ** steve?

 ** _Steve:_** Sorry yeah. I’m still here. I was talking to my mom.

 **_Steve:_ ** What was it you wanted to ask me?

 ** _Bucky:_** oh. um.

 ** _Bucky:_** nothing, really. i just wanted to ask if you were busy tomorrow and say goodnight, but we can talk in the morning.

 ** _Bucky:_** so, um. goodnight, steve.

 ** _Bucky:_** and don’t forget: cine se scoală de dimineață, departe ajunge. :)

 **_Steve:_ ** I still have no clue what the fuck that means.

 **_Bucky:_ ** you’re welcome.

 **_Steve:_ ** Goodnight to you too, Buck. Sleep well.

 ** _Bucky:_** yeah. yeah, you too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so, so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
> 
> Feel free to comment if you'd like! Comments feed my soul. You can also find me [heeeere](http://buckleupsupersoldier.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you want to chat.


	4. High Hopes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back agaaain! Hello, all! 
> 
> With this chapter we're officially half way through this fic (which is super weird to think about whoa wtf). Thank you so much for all the feedback on the first three chapters, and I hope you enjoy this one as well.

“You know,” Bucky said.

Steve turned to look at him, watching quietly as Bucky’s lips quirked up into that sideways grin Steve was quickly coming to adore. Currently, they were seated on a bench in the park. Bucky was swinging his legs back and forth, which was both the slightest bit annoying and genuinely more adorable than Steve could find words for.

“I know what?” Steve asked, glancing over at Bucky. He found a bright grin greeting him, Bucky’s crinkly-eyed dimpled smile shining across his face.

“You know that I care about you,” Bucky said, watching Steve closely.

The words caught Steve off guard, but he didn’t question them. The past few months of being Bucky’s friend had taught him that sometimes it was easier to not question Bucky and just see where he was trying to take things. At the very least, it seemed to please Bucky when Steve let him ramble for hours until he reached his point, and listening to Bucky talk for a while was well worth it if he kept smiling like that, in Steve’s books.

Steve shrugged, smiling back at Bucky. “I do. And you know I care about you, right?”

“Of course.” Bucky nudged his shoulder against Steve’s own and ducked his head. “You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met, Steve. I’m really glad that I found you in that hallway.”

“I’m glad you found me too,” Steve said quietly. “You’re my best friend, Buck. I can’t even tell you how much that means to me.”

For a split second, Bucky went a bit droopy, sinking into the bench and toeing at the ground. Almost as quickly as the change had happened it was gone, and Bucky had perked up again, his eyes bright.

“I like that we get ice cream a lot, too.” Bucky pretended to point his cone at Steve as if to elaborate on that point.

Steve bit down on a smile. “Yeah, I like that too. I think you’re one of the only people in the world who likes ice cream as much as I do.”

Bucky snorted. “No way, pal. I’m sure there are plenty of other ice cream lovers you could find out there that would be more than happy to go to your hole in the wall place with you all the time.”

 _I don’t want to go get ice cream with anyone else_ , Steve wanted to say.

 _You’re kind of it for me, and I mean that as more than ice-cream-pals_ rested next on the tip of his tongue.

In the end, however, Steve bit his tongue and didn’t say anything at all. Instead, he smiled at Bucky and nudged him in return, peering down at the ice cream cone in his hands.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “Maybe. But you’re my best friend. And there’s absolutely no one I’d rather go to shitty ice cream places with than you.”

Bucky grinned, wide and enthusiastic, and rolled his head up to stare at the sky. After a bit of subtle- it really wasn’t subtle at all- staring at Bucky, Steve moved to mimic him so that he was staring up at the sky

It was a beautiful day out. The sky was a clear and soft blue, and an occasional puffy white cloud floated past them. It was a kind of peace that Steve was fairly certain he hadn’t felt in a really long time. He smiled, leaning a bit closer to Bucky so he could whisper to him.

“That cloud looks like a dog,” Steve said, raising his hand and pointing upwards.

Bucky followed his finger, frowning just a bit before a smile broke out across his face. “Yeah, it does.”

Steve let out a quiet hum. He put his hand down next to him, but he didn’t bother to move away from Bucky.

(He probably should, actually.)

(He definitely wasn’t going to.)

“That one looks like a dick,” Bucky’s voice said suddenly, and Steve choked on his laughter. He tried to follow the line of Bucky’s hand to figure out what cloud he was pointing at, but his hysterics made it difficult to focus on much of anything.

“Oh my god.” Steve let out a puff of air. “You’re an asshole.”

Bucky laughed silently beside him. Steve could feel his shoulders shaking with the force of it. It was really adorable, actually.

Then again, Steve figured he was kind of biased, considering that he thought that everything Bucky did was adorable.

He couldn’t be the  _only_ person who thought that, though.

“Hey, Steve?” Bucky asked.

“Yeah?”

“You should eat your ice cream so it’ll stop melting on my arm.”

Steve jerked upright, yanking his ice cream towards him. He stared at the cone as if it had betrayed him before he finally took a few good licks. Bucky sat back up again and joined him, nibbling at the edges of his ice cream cone when he got far down enough. It was a peaceful moment, and Steve appreciated that. His life had felt so hectic lately, thanks to his classes, and it was nice to have a quiet moment with Bucky like this.

“Buck?” Steve turned his head to look at his friend, arching an eyebrow.

Bucky hummed. “What’s up?”

 _I think I’m falling in love with you_ , Steve wanted to say.

He decided that was a pretty shitty idea.

“Do you have any idea why those people are watching us?”

Bucky’s head snapped around, his eyes narrowing. His fighting posture seemed to relax a bit when he seemed to realize that he didn’t know the man and woman who were staring at them from a short distance down the path.

He frowned. “I... I don’t know,” Bucky finally said. “Do you know who they are?”

Steve shook his head, watching the two people carefully. “I have no clue. I don’t think I’ve ever seen either of them before.”

“Maybe they’re just not used to seeing First Son Steve Rogers out in public acting like a dumbass,” Bucky suggested. Steve elbowed him in the stomach for that, ignoring the pathetic, pained whimpers he got in return for the gesture.

“Maybe,” Steve agreed. He bit back the urge to tell Bucky that he was pretty sure that the two people were looking at Bucky and not him. He didn’t want to freak him out. Bucky scared easily, after all.

Bucky turned to him, then, frowning a bit. Steve was too easy to read and he was well aware of that, but there wasn’t much he could do. Bucky was going to know that he thought something was wrong no matter what. Steve couldn’t bring himself to hide anything from Bucky. He just wasn’t capable of it.

“You think it’s more than that,” Bucky assessed quietly.

Steve shrugged awkwardly, a quick jerk of his shoulders, and nodded. “I do.”

For a few heartbeats, Bucky stared at him, his eyes narrowed just the slightest bit. Quickly, he turned back around to stare at the two. Steve followed his gaze too, just watching. The man and woman- couple? Friends? Steve really couldn’t tell- seemed calm and collected, but they were still sending furtive glances in their direction.

It was really fucking weird, Steve decided.

“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” Bucky suggested. “If they follow us then we’ll know that they’re up to something and if they don’t then we’re not having to deal with their creepy stares, right?”

Steve nodded. It was sound logic and Steve wasn’t about to argue with Bucky. Bucky usually had better ideas than he did anyways. Steve just invited trouble into all his plans. It was something he’d learned to just accept, at this point in his life.

A hand reached out- familiar long, gentle fingers that Steve had thought about wrapping his own hand around way too often- and patted Steve’s gently as Bucky finished off the last of his ice cream. Then he was standing up and shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Let’s move then, pal,” Bucky said easily, sending a cheery wink in Steve’s direction.

He was so adorable that Steve almost missed the fact that the two people who had been watching them were now moving closer to them. Steve reached out and grabbed Bucky’s arm before he could even think about his actions.

Bucky turned to look at him, all confused. “Steve, what-"

“I think they’re going to follow us.” Steve normally would have felt bad about interrupting Bucky, but there were a lot of things going on all at once right now, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he was processing all of them correctly. All he knew was that he needed to get Bucky out of here before these people got too close to him.

“What?” Bucky jerked a bit in his hands, glancing over his shoulder. His eyes widened a bit, and Steve started moving down the path in front of them.

“Excuse me,” a voice said suddenly. “Are you Steve Rogers and James Barnes?”

Steve’s head snapped around and his eyes narrowed into a glare. He was probably throwing off all kinds of hostile vibes right now, but he didn’t think he could help it. He’d kind of gone into _Protect Bucky_ mode, and it didn’t seem like there was much Steve could do other than stick to the feeling he had in his gut that told him something about this situation was fishy.

“We are,” Bucky said. He threw a wary look at Steve, all quiet and closed off again. Steve decided then and there that he hated Bucky’s  _in public_ facade. It made him miss his Bucky.

Not that Bucky was his in any way, shape, or form but- still.

His Bucky definitely wasn’t a so bland and grumpy.

“Can we help you?” Steve asked calmly. He forced a polite smile on his lips.

The woman smiled back, reaching up to brush her hair behind her ear. “You can, actually.”

She reached into her pocket and grabbed what looked like a wallet until she flipped it open to reveal a fucking badge. Steve stilled, and he was pretty sure the weird feeling in his arms was Bucky was clutching at him and shaking more than a fallen leaf in the wind.

The man mimicked her movements, a politely bland smile on his face.

“I’m Detective Sharon Carter,” the woman said easily, “and this is Detective Mitch Carson. We’re with the FBI, and we’re interested in an interview with Mr. Barnes.”

Steve glanced at Bucky, his eyes growing a bit wide. He didn’t know what to do, at this moment, and he didn’t even think he could bring himself to say anything. Bucky himself looked almost as startled as Steve did, but there was some sort of tired acceptance in his expression that threw Steve for a loop. He didn’t think he’d ever seen that look on Bucky’s face before- so why would he be seeing it now?

“Steve,” Bucky said quietly. “Will you, um. Will you-”

“I’ll come with you,” Steve interrupted.

He actually had no clue what Bucky was trying to say to him, but his expression seemed to grow more and more upset as the seconds passed and Steve couldn’t let himself leave Bucky alone when he looked like that. He just couldn’t.

Bucky nodded a few times. He looked around- and, fuck, he just looked so lost and Steve wanted nothing more than to cling to him and never let go- before he finally moved towards Detective Carter and Detective Carson.

“If my friend can follow you in his car then I’ll go with you.” Bucky shot another nervous look at Steve.

Steve had to clench his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching out for him.

Detective Carter smiled, and there was something almost predatory in her smile that made Steve want to take Bucky as far away from her as possible.

“Of course, Mr. Barnes,” she said brightly. “Anything to make you more comfortable during this process.”

A few rather rude thoughts ran through Steve’s head, but he decided it was in his best interest to not say anything at this current moment in time.

“Okay,” Bucky said quietly. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and smiled over at Steve. “I’ll see you there, then.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “Yeah.”

What he didn’t say was: _Of course you will. I’d follow you anywhere._

_. . ._

The FBI headquarters was bustling with a nervous energy that Steve found he really didn’t like. He’d been inside of the building for all of two minutes, and he already felt lost. There were too many things moving at too fast of a pace for him to even process so, instead, Steve stood there dumbly, eyes wide as he tried to take in all the activity happening around him.

It didn’t take him too long, however, to locate Bucky and Detective Carter in the mess of the room.

Steve figured it was because he was probably too attuned to Bucky, at this point.

He made his way quickly over to the two of them. Bucky barely even moved, didn’t even look up at him, but the detective greeted him calmly, saying something about how she was glad he’d made it here safely. Steve couldn’t even bring himself to think about what she was saying. His attention was focused solely on Bucky instead, his eyes carefully watching him.

Bucky still didn’t move.

“Mr. Rogers,” the detective said, finally drawing his attention away from Bucky. “I’m going to need you to take a seat in here while I take Mr. Barnes to a separate room so we can question him.”

Steve frowned. Bucky made a sad little noise, so he shook his head, stubbornly crossing his arms over his chest.

“With all due respect, ma’am,” Steve replied. He tried his best to lay on as much Brooklyn charm as possible. It had worked for him before, after all, so he might as well try it out now. “Bucky asked for me to come with him and I’d rather not leave him alone.”

That only seemed to irritate Detective Carter more, though, which definitely  _wasn’t_ Steve’s goal. There wasn’t much he could do, however, other than watch her shake her head. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

“Detective Carter,” Steve said.

The woman sighed, adjusted her hair and said, “look, for right now, I’m going to have to ask you to wait here. It’s protocol, and I’m not the head detective on the case. When she gets here then you can take this all up with her, okay?”

Steve made a face. “Detective Carter, please-”

“Just call me Sharon. I have a feeling we’re going to be here for a while today, and my name is far less of a mouthful.”

“Sharon,” Steve tried. “Please. Look, he’s _scared_. Just let me talk to him. Please.”

Sharon sighed. She looked sad, just a bit, but Steve could see in her expression that she wasn’t going to give in to his begging anytime soon.

“I’m sorry,” Sharon said. “I have to take him to a separate room, but I swear I’ll send the lead detective over here before I let her come talk to him, okay?”

It seemed like that was about as good of a deal as Steve was going to get.

He let his arms fall back down to his chest and he sighed, slumping down into the closest chair. He settled his head back on the wall and watched as Sharon led Bucky away. He tried to catch a glimpse of Bucky’s expression, but he was folded so far in on himself that Steve could barely see him at all.

Steve pulled out his phone, tapping away at it uselessly. It was even really distracting enough, in the end, but Steve knew that he needed to do something with his hands or he’d be completely useless. Just as he was finishing up a third shittily played round of easy sudoku, he suddenly heard footsteps walking in his direction again.

There was a sudden intake of breath and someone asked, “Steve?”

The sound of the familiar voice had Steve looking up quickly, and he froze at the sight of Natasha behind him. She seemed just as confused at the sight of him as he’d felt for the past few hours. There wasn’t really a good explanation for any of this, though- especially since Steve had no idea what was going on- so he just shrugged a little helplessly and forced an apologetic smile onto his lips.

“Hey, Natasha,” he greeted easily. “How are you?”

Natasha frowned and took a step back. She seemed to consider the question for a short while before she finally shifted, placing her center of gravity in an entirely different spot than it had been before. Finally, she tilted her head back ever so slightly, letting her hair fall out of the way.

“I’m well, thank you.” Natasha pursed her lips, then, her hands settling by her side. “What are you doing here, Steve?”

“I was, um.” Steve paused, glancing over his shoulder. He had no idea where Bucky was, exactly, in the building now, but the last time he had seen him he was being led somewhere back there. “I was with a friend and... and one of your coworkers brought him in for questioning, I guess. He looked pretty upset, so I said I’d come with him.”

“A friend...” Natasha trailed off, suddenly, her eyes narrowing. Steve shifted uncomfortably under her scrutiny, his nose wrinkling. “Are you talking about James Barnes, Steve?”

Steve cleared his throat, shrugging hesitantly. “Um, yes?”

Natasha didn’t say anything for a long time. Instead, she just stared at him, her eyes narrowed. She seemed to be searching for something in his expression, so Steve stood there and let her, trying his best to not give away all his deepest secrets. If it were anyone else, he probably wouldn’t have been concerned, but Natasha had a habit of noticing too much.

“Why are you friends with him?” She suddenly demanded, her eyes narrowing.

Steve cleared his throat and shrugged awkwardly, his shoulders a little stunted in their motion. However, no matter how much he liked Natasha, he couldn’t help the defensive tone his words took on when he said, “Why wouldn’t I be? He’s a good person, Natasha.”

Some of the tension seemed to drain out of Natasha. “That’s not what I meant.”

That cleared up absolutely nothing.

“What did you mean, then?”

Natasha sighed, running a hand over her face. “Look, Steve. I have no doubt that James is a good human being. You’re usually a good judge of character, even if you can be a bit of an idiot.”

“Um.” Steve frowned. He wasn’t exactly sure how he should feel after that, but it was _Natasha_ , so she probably meant that as a compliment. “Thank you?”

“We think that he’s involved in something really serious, Steve.”

It wasn’t so much the words that left Natasha as it was her tone that got Steve’s attention. Natasha had always been good at hiding her emotions, but her tone of voice was always the biggest clue to what she truly felt. And, right now, she sounded so somber that he felt his breath catch in his throat. He had no idea what Bucky could be involved in that would be so horrible, but Natasha seemed to think that there was something wrong, and her gut instinct was usually always right.

Just as Steve was struggling to find a response to that, Sharon turned the corner from the hallway she and Bucky had disappeared down earlier and approached the two of them.

“He won’t say anything,” Sharon said, giving Natasha a significant look. The meaning of it was entirely lost on Steve, but he wasn’t blind enough to not know that the look meant  _something_.

Natasha pursed her lips, giving Steve a cursory glance before turning her full attention to Sharon. “What does he want, then?”

Sharon reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose, her eyes fluttering closed as she sighed heavily. “He says that he won’t talk unless Steve is with him.”

“Steve?” Natasha repeated. Her brow furrowed. “He does know that Steve isn’t a lawyer, right? He’s studying _politics_.”

A frown tugged Steve’s lips downwards before he could help it. “Hey,” he muttered.

Neither of them even turned to look at him.

_Wow. Rude._

“I don’t think that’s what he’s worried about.” Sharon shrugged, giving Steve another analytical look. “I think he’s just panicking and doesn’t know what to do with himself. He probably trusts Steve to keep him grounded more than he trusts himself.”

Both women paused to consider this before they both turned and focused their attention on him. Steve shifted uncomfortably under their scrutiny.

Natasha finally reached out and patted his arm. The gesture would have been a friendly gesture if it had come from someone else, but the way Natasha was looking at him- all analytical, her eyes sharp and intense- made the movement feel almost patronizing. It was a little too much for Steve, and he just stared blankly at her, unable to react.

“Well, what do you say, Steve? Do you want to come sit with James while we talk to him?”

Steve cleared his throat, shifting away from Natasha. “Are you even allowed to do that?” He asked, narrowing his eyes. “I thought only a lawyer was allowed in there with you guys.”

“He’s not under arrest,” Natasha offered briefly. “He came willingly and he can leave at any time. The rules are slightly more flexible in situations like this.”

Steve really hadn’t imagined his day turning out like this.

“Um. Yeah. Sure. I’ll go sit with him.”

Triumph blazed across Natasha’s face for a split second before her expression was carefully neutral again and she patted his arm once more. “Sounds like a good plan. Go ahead and follow me, yeah?”

Before Steve could even reply, Natasha had started off down the hallway, causing him to pick up his pace in order to keep track with her. None of them said anything until they came to a stop in front of the door to one of the holding rooms.

“We’re not going to interrogate him,” Natasha said then, hand on the doorknob, and turned to look at him. She looked serious, her eyes flickering over Steve’s face. “We just want to ask him a few questions. Any information he feels like he can give us will be sufficient. We’re just hoping to get a lead out of him, but he’s free to go whenever he wants to.”

Steve frowned, his eyes darting away from Natasha. Instead, he focused them on the doorknob, staring at the cool metal and the way the shinier edge of it glimmered in the shitty overhead fluorescent lights. “Okay,” he finally agreed. “I’ll see if I can get him to tell you something. But I’m not going to force him. And if he wants to leave then he’s going to leave.”

Relief settled in the air around them, but Natasha just nodded calmly, her hair bobbing gently with the motion. “Alright. Go ahead in.”

The door swung open and Natasha stepped away from it, letting Steve move past her.

Bucky was slumped in his chair. He looked the picture of casual and uncaring, but there was a tension in his shoulders that looked almost unbearable. His leg was bouncing at a rapid pace, the sound of his foot tapping quickly against the floor shortly followed by the uncomfortable squeak of the table as he jammed his knee up against it. When Steve entered, he didn’t even look up. The only thing that changed in his demeanor was the way his hands clenched against the side of the table.

Steve cleared his throat and said, _“Bucky.”_

Bucky’s head snapped up, and the look of overwhelming relief on his face at the sight of Steve almost made Steve want to cry.

It was so unfair. So un-fucking-fair.

“Steve.” Bucky’s voice shook a bit. He shifted, the bouncing of his leg ceasing, and held a hand out to Steve. “Hi. Thank you.”

And, because he was utterly and pathetically helpless when it came to Bucky Barnes, Steve stepped forwards and placed his hand gently in Bucky’s for a few seconds before settling into the seat next to him.

“Hi,” Steve returned gently once he was settled in. “And, um. You don’t have to thank me, Buck. You know that.”

It was amazing how it only took those six words to make Bucky’s entire face soften. The tension left his shoulders immediately, and he just smiled at Steve, a hint of red burning against his cheeks. “Yeah. Um.” Bucky, for no apparent reason, giggled, just a few spurts of laughter, before he seemed to force himself to stop. “Yes, I know. But, uh... Still. Thank you, Steve.”

Steve shrugged. He didn’t know what else he could do, really. “You’re welcome, then.”

The door opened again. It wasn’t harsh, but it still caused Bucky to flinch. His hands moved to grip at his sides as if he were trying to hold himself together by sheer force of will. Steve frowned, feeling the worry fighting its way up inside of him. His face was probably already painted with it.

“Mr. Barnes?” Natasha requested easily, coming to sit across the table from them. She set a file down on the table, her perfectly manicured nails tapping out a soft pattern on top of it, her hair swinging as she settled down properly. Sharon shut the door behind them and followed suit. “Hi. Thank you for coming with us here. We just have a couple questions for you, if that’s okay.”

A nervous exhale was the only response offered to those words, and Steve glanced at Bucky in concern again.

Here, in this small room with its plain gray everything- the walls a soft gray, the table a slightly dull silver- Bucky looked like Steve had never seen him before. There was something helpless in his expression, and Steve decided quickly that he didn’t like seeing that look on Bucky’s face. However, after a few seconds of silence, the look cleared up completely, and Bucky simply nodded, his face serious.

“I understand,” he agreed. “I... I will try to answer what I can.”

It was the right answer for him to give and Steve was fairly certain that Bucky was well aware of that fact. Sharon and Natasha seemed to relax a bit anyways, all gentle smiles and graceful nods.

“You’re engaged to Alexander Pierce, are you not?” Natasha asked.

Bucky stiffened, the tension that had drained out of him a few minutes ago back full force in a matter of seconds. “I am,” he said. His voice was stiff, entirely uncooperative and almost angry, and a large part of Steve wanted nothing more than to hold him, even though he was well aware of how inappropriate that would be.

Sharon spoke next, tilting her head and causing her ponytail to swing a bit as she said, “How long have the two of you been together?”

“We’ve been engaged for six months,” Bucky said abruptly.

It wasn’t an answer to the question, but it wasn’t-not an answer all the same.

Steve glanced uncertainly at Bucky, but he didn’t elaborate any further. He just stared at Natasha and Sharon, a hard expression in his eyes.

“Okay.” A cough followed the words, and Natasha tapped her pencil against the table. “Have you ever heard of Senator Pierce or anyone surrounding him being involved in something that might be illegal?”

“Why are you asking me this?” Bucky said in return. His posture was statue-like, now, and he if hadn’t spoken Steve might have been worried that he was going to refuse to move again until Natasha and Sharon left the room. “Why was I brought here?”

Steve tensed, reaching a hand out and settling it on Bucky’s arm after an awkward moment of deliberation. Bucky jerked to look at him, and Steve smiled slightly.

“It’s okay, Buck,” Steve said slowly. “They’ll explain if you want them to. Just breathe.”

Bucky didn’t move for what felt like an eternity, but, finally, he seemed to falter, folding in on himself. He nodded, and then turned to stare at Natasha and Sharon.

Natasha sighed, placing her hands flat out on the table. “There’s been rumors circulating for months about a multitude of politicians being involved in rather serious crimes through an underground crime ring. Currently, we’re not permitted to discuss these rumors or the people involved in them at leisure, but they do exist. At first, Chief Fury dismissed all of them as mostly baseless and not something we should worry about, but then we found evidence a few weeks ago incriminating someone. There have been a lot of unsavory rumors about your fiance over the past few months, Mr. Barnes, and we just wished to ask you if there was any possible basis to any of them.”

The room fell silent, tension thick in the air. Bucky was practically shaking with it, but as Steve turned to look at him, any and all movement suddenly ceased.

“I can’t tell you that,” Bucky said suddenly. His voice was oddly gentle, but he looked a little bit lost, in that moment. “I... I’m sorry. I can’t.”

The words caused a curious look to cross Natasha’s face, but she nodded very seriously.

“Do you think perhaps someone close to your fiance could be involved in them? A friend, maybe, or someone who works for him? One of his assistants?”

Bucky floundered for a long second, his jaw opening and closing a few times. He looked so unsure of himself, so decidedly not-Bucky, that Steve felt his heart sink into his stomach.

“Bucky,” Steve whispered.

Stormy gray eyes locked on his and Steve held his breath, just waiting for however long Bucky needed.  Finally, Bucky nodded, his lips quivering even as he forced them into a straight line.

He turned back to Natasha and Sharon, a grimace written across his face. Abruptly, he pulled himself to his feet, dusting off his coat and said, “Jack Rollins.”

The name seemed to catch everyone in the room- even Bucky himself- off guard. Natasha blinked a few times, her eyes flickering from the file on the table back to Bucky and then away to the window behind them and back to Bucky one more time.

“Pardon?”

Bucky cleared his throat. The cold edge that had existed in his eyes a few seconds ago was gone now, placed with something else entirely. “Jack Rollins,” he said again, and his voice shook over the name this time. “You should look into Jack Rollins.”

“And if we do that will it lead us back to your fiance, Mr. Barnes?” Sharon’s voice was sharp, and it was clear that she wasn’t thinking about what she was saying. Rather, it seemed that she was just talking aloud as she thought through things.

Nonetheless, her words caused Bucky to snap backward, a snarl pulling at his lips.

“Don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t ask me that. I’m not giving you anything on my fiance. There’s...” Bucky swallowed. “There’s nothing for me to give, detective. So stop asking me.”

They all stared at each other, then, silent and stiff, frozen in time, before Bucky stepped back, his chin raising a few inches into the air. It gave him an almost disdainful appearance, and Steve wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about it.

This man in front of him right now wasn’t the Bucky he knew and that thought was more unsettling than Steve could even begin to describe.

“Of course,” Natasha finally agreed. The tension in the room snapped, and Bucky’s shoulders sagged. “We don’t want to upset you, Mr. Barnes. Thank you so much for coming in to talk to us.”

Bucky swallowed, rocking back onto his heels. He nodded nervously. Steve watched as his hands twitched a bit, his legs jumping. It was nervous twitch that Steve had taken note of over the past few weeks. It made Bucky even easier to read, and Steve was fairly certain that he could read Bucky better than anyone, at this point.

“You’re... You’re welcome,” Bucky finally settled on saying. He didn’t look like he meant the words, not really, but he was still fighting to be polite, even in a situation like this. Without another word, Bucky turned on his heel and was out the door, running like a scolded dog with its tail between its legs.

Steve felt concern wash over him.

He didn’t even bother to say goodbye to Natasha or Sharon before he was out the door, moving as quickly as he could to catch up with Bucky.

Steve barely managed to keep pace with Bucky until they were both out of the precinct and Bucky came to an abrupt stop.

“Buck?” Steve called. “Hey. Are you okay?”

Bucky had hunched in on himself a bit where he was standing on the walkway, and he looked as if he was trying to see if he could curl up completely within himself and vanish. It was a sad kind of adorable, and Steve couldn’t help but frown at the sight of it. He reached out and touched Bucky’s arm gently. Bucky didn’t jerk away from him like Steve expected him to.

No, of course not. That would be too easy.

Instead, Bucky curled into Steve’s chest.

Steve took a few seconds of dumb stillness before he could even begin to try and process that move when, suddenly, he realized that Bucky’s shoulders were shaking.

Because he was crying.

“Bucky,” Steve whispered. “Whoa, hey, hey. Buck. _Baby_. What’s wrong? Please talk to me.”

Bucky pulled out of his arms- Steve’s arms missed the warmth of him there, so he pressed them tightly against his sides to fight against it- and wiped angrily at his cheeks. Steve wasn’t sure if he was angry that he was crying or if he was just angry in general. Actually, Steve had no clue what the fuck was going on right now. He knew nothing.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Bucky whispered. “I shouldn’t have said any of that.”

“Hey.” Steve reached a hand out again, and when Bucky didn’t move away Steve reached out to brush a strand of his hair behind his ear. “You’re going to be okay, Bucky. Everything’s going to be just fine.”

For whatever reason, that made Bucky laugh. And not his pretty happy with life laugh, but that dark ugly laugh that kind of sounded like a fuck off.

Steve bit down on his bottom lip nervously, watching as Bucky paced back and forth like he was some caged animal, his eyes intense, tear tracks still glistening on his cheeks.

He looked vicious, right now, bloodthirsty and brutal and- fuck it- absolutely beautiful with it. Bucky, right now, was beautiful in the way that a tiger was beautiful, a creature of pure strength and intensity that was far too dangerous to ever approach, but something that absolutely took one’s breath away.

Steve decided that he didn’t like it.

It made Bucky feel as if he was miles away.

Steve liked Bucky to be close.

(His arms still ached with the lack of Bucky wrapped up in them.)

“Buck?” Steve asked. “Do you, um. What do you want me to do?”

Bucky startled, his eyes widening. He turned his gaze to Steve, blinking a bit in confusion. “Um. I’m... I’m sorry I’m-”

“It’s okay, Bucky. Please don’t cry. Just... Just tell me how to help you, okay?”

“I, um.” Bucky swallowed, all nervous and awkward now. He rubbed his hands against his pants. “I think you should take me back to the park. Someone will be there in about ten minutes to pick me up. I just... I just want to go home, Steve.”

Steve’s heart ached. All he wanted was to take Bucky home and look after him all night, but he was also well aware that that fantasy would never come true.

So Steve just nodded, grabbing his keys from his back pocket so he could unlock the car. “Sure, Buck. Hop in the car and I’ll take you right there.”

Bucky moved silently, slipping over to the passenger side of the car.

The car ride back to the park was spent in a tense sort of silence, the two of them awkwardly pretending there was nothing to say while Dexy’s Midnight Runners played on in the background.

Steve tried his hardest to pretend that the peppy upbeat tune didn’t make the atmosphere of the car more awkward than it already was.

He kind of failed at it.

When they reached the park, Bucky opened the car door and slid forward in his seat as if to get out before he stopped and fell back into the leather. Steve was about to ask him if he was okay when Bucky finally turned to look up at him. His (beautiful) eyes looked a bit misty again, but Bucky simply reached out and gripped at Steve’s hand.

“Steve,” Bucky whispered. “Thank you.”

“Of course, Buck,” Steve said back.

Bucky was out of the car before Steve could tack on, _“always_.”

_. . ._

“Hey, Buck,” Steve said. He tapped his foot nervously against the floor. “Um, it’s me. Er. It’s Steve. I was just wondering if you’re okay? I know that yesterday was really difficult and you seemed pretty shaken up about everything. I wanted to make sure that you weren’t still upset, you know? You, um. You mean a lot to me, remember? I’m not going to force you to talk to me if you don’t want to, though, so um. Just know that I care a lot about you and I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Yeah, that’s all.”

The beep signaling the end of his message sounded, and Steve groaned, falling onto his bed and smushing his face in his pillows. He let out a few whiny screechy noises, well aware of the fact that he was honestly acting like the stereotype of a teen girl with a crush in a dumb ass romcom, but he couldn’t stop himself.

At this point, this was pretty much his only outlet for the overwhelming feelings of pure mushiness that he felt for Bucky.

Screaming into his pillow.

Yeah, he was being super productive.

Steve rolled over and tapped the button on his phone. He had been checking almost non-stop over the past twenty-four hours for some kind of sign from Bucky, be it a text message or a phone call, but there had been almost nothing.

It fucking sucked.

Steve  _missed_ Bucky. His heart ached with it and his stomach kind of clenched and tied itself up in knots every time he thought about Bucky and what he could be up to right now. Why was Bucky even ignoring him? Steve didn’t think he’d done anything wrong.

He hoped that he hadn’t done anything wrong.

Sighing, Steve ran his hands over his face and grumbled to himself.

Approximately two seconds later, his phone started buzzing from where he had set it next to him, and Steve jumped to answer it.

He was a little out of breath as he asked, “hello?”

“Hi, Steve.”

Steve felt his entire body drop back down onto his mattress. “ _Bucky_ ,” he whispered.

“Hi,” Bucky repeated. His voice was quiet, barely rising above a whisper. It only made the conversation feel more intimate, but Steve tried his best not to think about that. “I’m sorry about last night. And this morning.”

“Oh.” Steve blinked. “No, no. It’s okay. I just... I just wanted to make sure that you were alright, you know?”

Bucky hummed down the line, his voice coming through loud and clear, even though he was talking so quietly.

They were quiet for a few minutes- a little over six. Steve knew because he watched the timer on the phone call go up- before Steve finally asked, “ _are_ you okay?”

“I’m...” Bucky gave a weird little gasp and stopped talking. He took a deep breath before he tried to continue. “I’m not going to lie to you, Steve. I’m really not okay right now. Um. It’s... It’s nothing you did, which is why I wanted to call you. I missed you, you know. And I didn’t want you to think I was avoiding talking to you because I’m definitely not. I just feel really awful right now and, um, I think I need a few days to recover.”

Steve frowned. “Oh... Okay. Do you want me to not talk to you for the next few days, then?”

“No!” Bucky blurted out. The sudden loudness of the word startled Steve so badly that he almost dropped his phone. Bucky let out a puff of air. “No, no. That’s not what I meant. I, um. I just meant that I think it’d be best if we don’t meet up for the next few days but, um. Please feel free to call me and text me whenever. I think I’d like that a lot, actually.”

“Okay,” Steve agreed. He felt unsteady now, completely uncertain as to what he should even do. What should he say to Bucky? Steve feared that he’d only upset Bucky more if he started talking.

“Um.” Bucky cleared his throat. “Do you... Do you want to go?”

Steve shoved the hurt that welled up within him down. He shrugged awkwardly before he remembered that Bucky definitely couldn’t see him right now. “Do you want me to go?”

Bucky let out a puff of air. “ _No_ , Steve. Fuck. I don’t want you to go at all. You just sound really weird right now, so I thought I should probably check with you.”

“Oh. Right. Well, um. I don’t want to go. I promise.”

“Okay.” There was a soft noise on the other side of the line, but Steve couldn’t make it out well enough to tell what was going on. “I’m glad, Steve. I... I know it’s kind of shitty coming from me since I ignored you and everything, but I... I really missed talking to you.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Don’t blame yourself, Buck. I’m sure you have a really good reason.”

“I think you might put too much faith in me, Rogers.”

Biting back a smile, Steve rolled over onto his side. He pressed his phone between his ear and his shoulder to keep it in place as he slid himself under his covers. After a short deliberation, Steve turned his phone on speaker and set it down on the pillow next to him.

It was maybe a little bit pathetic, but at least this way he could pretend that Bucky was lying right next to him.

Fuck, Steve really needed to stop with his feelings for Bucky.

But, then again, it wasn’t like Bucky really discouraged them.

Still, Steve was well aware of the fact that it was an awful idea to have feelings for someone who was already taken- much less  _e_ _ngaged_ \- and yet here he was, sitting on the phone with Bucky Barnes and smiling like a fool in love.

Which he kind of was.

 _Shit_.

Steve froze up, his heart pounding in his chest.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuckfuckfuckfuck.

Nope.

“Hey, Steve?” Bucky asked. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Yeah, I’m here, Buck.”

As he listened to Bucky babble on and on about something that had happened yesterday that Steve had missed, Steve smiled sleepily at his phone, wishing that it was actually Bucky right next to him.

And even though Steve knew the thought was always going to sit in the back of his head, he also knew better than to keep wishing for things that would never happen.

So he was going to stop.

Starting now.

“Steve? Do you think, um. Would you mind if I fell asleep with you still on the other line?” Bucky asked quietly, his voice all shy and sheepish.

Steve blinked dumbly at his phone.

Okay.

Starting tomorrow, then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so, so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
> 
> Feel free to comment if you'd like, I love reading all of them. You can also find me [heeeere](http://buckleupsupersoldier.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you want to chat.


	5. Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand it's time for another chapter. Hi everyone!
> 
> I really enjoyed writing this chapter, so I hope you guys enjoy it as much as you've enjoyed the last four. Thank you so much for all the feedback! Enjoy~

It had been another week of oddly long phone calls and lots of texting before Bucky had allowed himself to see Steve again.

Steve had yet to figure out exactly _why_ that had happened, but he had decided it was probably best not to question Bucky. He’d seemed a bit jumpy after their day at the FBI headquarters. Steve didn’t blame him for that. The whole thing had been... weird. Still, Steve had been so fearful that the distance between them over the past week and few days had meant Bucky didn’t want to be his friend anymore, but- evidently- that wasn’t the case.

“I’m glad you invited me back here,” Bucky said to him. His eyes were bright, full of that light that made Steve just want to kiss him or hold him close for hours, so he decided to focus his attention on the flowers around them. “The gardens are beautiful.”

“I think so too.” Steve turned and smiled at Bucky. “I love spending time in them. It’s fun to draw the flowers.” There was a short pause- not awkward or stilted, just quiet- before Steve added, “I’m glad you decided to come back here.”

Bucky turned to look at him and smiled. It was that secret smile, the one that Steve knew Bucky smiled at only him, and he was pretty certain his heart stopped for a few seconds. Fuck. If Bucky kept pulling stuff like this Steve was going to need to a defibrillator. Or something.

“You invited me,” Bucky said. “Of course I decided to come.”

For fuck’s sake, why did he just keep  _saying_ things like that?

Steve couldn’t handle it anymore.

Not that he wanted Bucky to stop.

Steve glanced sidelong at Bucky ad bit back a smile when he noticed that Bucky had bent over to smell the some of the flowers that were still in bloom.

Fuck, Bucky was beautiful.

It wasn’t like the observation was anything new- Steve noticed how beautiful Bucky was all the time. He couldn’t help it. Besides, it wasn’t like he was the only person who noticed it. Actually, he was pretty certain everyone did. Bucky wasn’t only good looking, but he also had a confidence to his stance and his expression that made him stand out all the more.

Steve wished he could explain it better, but being around Bucky kind of did weird things to his head.

Well. Not just his head,  _but_ the point still stood.

Bucky turned to look at him, then, all smiles and eyes filled with mischievous lightness.

“Well,” Bucky finally said. “What do you want to do next, Rogers? Did you have a plan about what you wanted to do today or are we just making things up as we go?”

Steve rolled his eyes and pressed his lips together to stop himself from smiling. “We’re making things up as we go,” he finally said. “Don’t be an asshole about it.”

“An asshole?” Bucky placed a hand over his heart dramatically and gasped. He was an idiot, and Steve couldn’t stop smiling. “Steve, I would _never_.”

“You’re such a liar.” Steve laughed, rolling his eyes.

The grin on Bucky’s face was wide- too wide, almost, Steve didn’t think he’d ever seen that look on Bucky’s face before- and it was kind of adorable. Steve knew that he needed to stop thinking that Bucky was adorable every time he did anything, but there was also really nothing stopping him, no matter how problematic that was.

“I am not a liar,” Bucky protested childishly, pouting up at Steve. “Shut up.”

Steve bit down on his laughter. “What are you, four?”

In response to that, Bucky stuck his tongue out.

“We could go watch a movie,” Steve said suddenly. “The movie theater is just inside that hallway over there.”

Bucky stared at him blankly for a few minutes before he repeated, “Movie theater.”

“Um, yup,” Steve said.

Bucky was still staring at him, and it was getting to be a little bit weird by now. “You... You grew up in a house that has a movie theater _in_ it.”

Steve shrugged. “Yeah, I know. I... I don’t know. I’m lucky, I know I am. I wish I felt-” Steve sighed, biting at the inside of his cheek. “I just. Sometimes, I wish I felt like that rather than just... Knowing it, you know?”

“What do you mean?” Bucky asked quietly.

Steve shrugged. “I guess, well. I loved my dad. And I knew he loved me. It was just... He was so far removed from my life. I almost never saw him. And I guess a lot of the time my life never even felt real? I was sick so much that sometimes it all just kind of seems so empty and hazy.”

“Steve.” Bucky’s voice was quiet, but Steve turned to look at him anyways, almost surprised by the fact that Bucky was looking at him with that sad little smile of his. “Thank you.”

That was probably more startling than anything else that Bucky could have done. Steve had expected an empty apology, the same one people always gave him when he talked about his childhood, but, instead, here was Bucky, just saying  _thank you_.

“Thank you? For what?”

Bucky smiled, his fingers trailing along the flower he’d been sniffing earlier. “Thank you for telling me. I know how hard it is to talk about things that hurt. So thank you.”

“No,” Steve shook his head, smiling back at Bucky. “Thank  _you_ , Buck. For being someone I can trust.”

Bucky, the asshole, just rolled his eyes. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Oh?” Steve snorted, biting at his bottom lip so a wide, ridiculous smile wouldn’t break out across his face. “Was that too much sentimental bullshit for you, pal?”

The sound of Bucky’s laugh was still bell-like, but there was something so purely Bucky about it that it made it gave it Bucky’s rough and tumble vibe all the same. Steve loved it. (He was starting to think he loved everything about Bucky, which was a lot to try and process and too much to really think about, but what else was he supposed to do? He couldn’t _stop_ thinking about Bucky Barnes and sometimes it was beautiful and sometimes it fucking sucked.)

“Of course,” Bucky agreed. He was grinning back at Steve, his eyes twinkling now. “My limit is about half an hour of that shit every day, and I think we’ve probably gone well past that point already.”

Steve rolled his eyes again. He seemed to do that a lot around Bucky Barnes. Because Bucky Barnes was a little shit who totally deserved it.

Bucky winked at him and then spread his arms wide and said, “ _So._ What movie are we going to watch, then?”

Steve grinned at Bucky’s antics and shrugged. “Whatever you want, babe.”

Fuck, he needed to stop accidentally calling Bucky  _babe_. That really wasn’t going to work out for him. At all. Ever.

Still, Steve figured he wasn’t going to be able to stop himself anytime soon. Even though he was well aware that his feelings for Bucky would never be something he could act on, Steve still knew that he wasn’t going to stop feeling them anytime soon.

He kind of figured it was impossible to be around Bucky and  _not_ fall in love with him.

“Oh.” Bucky’s cheeks looked a little red, and for a split second Steve wondered if it was because he’d called him babe. No. It was probably because it was kind of chilly out. That made more sense, anyways. “Um. I don’t know. Something dramatic.”

“Wow,” Steve said. “How specific.”

Bucky flipped him off. Because he was an asshole. An asshole that Steve loved probably way too much, but that was beside the point.

They moved inside the hallway, then, Steve biting back laughter and Bucky grinning broadly. They probably looked like complete idiots, but Steve couldn’t bring himself to fight it. He just wished he knew why Bucky was grinning like that at him.

Part of Steve wished he wouldn’t, while the other part of Steve wished that he’d never stop.

As Steve was about to motion to the theater and end up saying something that would probably be pretty lame (really, that was everything he said around Bucky), they were suddenly interrupted by Clint nearly running smack into them in the hallway.

Steve made a face at his step-brother. “Clint, what the hell are you doing?”

“Natasha’s here!” Clint said brightly, grinning widely up at Steve.

Steve was still going to stand by the fact that there was no way Natasha and Clint weren’t dating.

“You know you’re acting like a teenager who hasn’t seen his girlfriend all summer, right?” Steve asked, biting back a laugh as Clint turned and glared at him but didn’t even respond before he was off down the hallway again, heading out to the main foyer.

Bucky moved a few steps so he was standing right beside Steve and rested his hand on his arm. “Natasha?”

“Oh, um.” Steve shook his head. “You’ve met her. She’s, um... Agent Romanov. But she’s also a good friend of Clint’s. I think they’re dating, but they won’t ever admit it.”

“Why is she here?” Bucky asked. There was a frown on his face and a spark of fear in his eyes that Steve decided he really didn’t like. Bucky had no reason to be afraid of people. He deserved better than living a life of fear because of suspicious things his fiance may or may not be doing. “She... She’s not here for me, is she?”

Steve turned, his eyes widening a bit. The question was... kind of valid, Steve supposed. Bucky had been so twitchy the past few weeks about his interview with the FBI, so it wasn’t a surprise that he seemed to be paranoid about it. Still, Steve couldn’t help but feel startled.

Finally, he just shrugged. “Um, I don’t actually know,” he said, “but probably not. If she’d been looking for you she probably would have gone to Pierce’s house, right?”

For a long moment, Bucky didn’t even move. Then he turned to look at Steve, his eyes wide, and said, “can we just go... check? To make sure.”

Steve wasn’t entirely sure why that was necessary, but he shrugged. Why not, right? If it was going to make Bucky feel better, then Steve was more than willing to go see Natasha for a few minutes before she and Clint started acting all weird and flirty. Then it just got gross. And when that happened, Steve was going to hightail it out of there so he could go be weird and flirty with Bucky elsewhere.

“Sure thing, Buck.” Steve jerked his head in the direction of the main foyer and watched as some of the tension drained out of Bucky’s shoulders. “Let’s go see what’s going on over there, yeah? And then you’ve got to make up your mind about a movie because you keep stalling and I will not stand for that.”

Bucky stared at him for a moment, his eyes wide, before he burst out into quiet spurts of laughter. It was ridiculous and he was beautiful and Steve wanted nothing more than to watch Bucky laugh that way- his head thrown back, the corners of his eyes crinkled up, dimples popping up, his lips spreading wide across his face, his cheeks just a bit red- for the rest of time.

So what if he was being dramatic? It didn’t matter.

Bucky Barnes was absolutely gorgeous, after all, and Steve was helpless when it came to his charm.

They moved down the hall together as Bucky’s laughter tapered off into quiet, amused puffs of air. Steve’s shoes squeaked against the freshly polished floor, and he winced just a bit every time. The noise ruined everything about the atmosphere. It was awful.

At the very least, though, Bucky seemed to find it funny, because he kept snickering every time Steve made a pained face at his feet.

The foyer was almost chaotic when they finally reached it, crowded with security officials, all of whom Natasha seemed to be facing off against. Clint stood a little way away from where Steve and Bucky stood, confusion on every line of his face. Steve felt himself come to a stop, frowning in surprise. He didn’t know why the security guards would be bothering Natasha. She came around often enough that they never seemed to bother her much more than was necessary anymore.

Steve figured it was because she was really fucking scary when she wanted to be.

“What’s going on?” Steve asked, glancing over at Clint. Bucky- who had come to a stop right behind him when they’d entered the foyer- tilted a bit around Steve’s back to try and get a good look at the hissing discussion that was happening between Natasha and several security personnel.

Clint shrugged, a helpless look of confusion written across his face. “I have no idea, man. They made me stop back here and wouldn’t let me get any closer. I don’t know if I even want to know what’s going on, at this point.”

It was  _just_ like Clint to be so blase about this.

Steve arched an eyebrow. “It looks pretty intense,” he said, turning his eyes back to where Natasha had started waving her hands around angrily as if to show the men she was talking to just how serious she really was about whatever they were discussing.

He shot a quick glance over his shoulder to watch Bucky. He had an odd look of apprehension in his eyes, but he didn’t say anything or even bother to move. He seemed perfectly content to just stand and watch, barely peeking out at the scene from around Steve’s side.

“Are they not letting her in or is something else going on?” Steve tried asking, but Clint just shrugged again. Steve wasn’t sure if he looked so agitated because he didn’t know and didn’t care about what was going on, just that it was getting in the way of his time with Natasha, or if he didn’t know and was just as worried about the situation as Steve was.

Steve kind of figured that it was the latter.

“Steve?” Bucky said suddenly.

Steve turned to look at him again, blinking a few times. Bucky had ducked his head, his hair a disheveled mess atop his head. He seemed like he was trying to hide by curling in on himself, but it wasn’t going very well.

“What’s up, Buck?” Steve asked.

Bucky’s tongue wet his lips in a quick motion, and Steve found himself staring. That was far too distracting and absolutely not okay. Nope.

“I’m... She’s not here for me, is she?”

Steve shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. We can... We can go watch that movie now if you want. Or we can stay a bit longer and figure out why she’s here if you’d like to do-”

“I have an  _arrest warrant_ ,” Natasha snapped suddenly. Steve felt his stomach drop to the floor and he whirled around to look at the group standing by the door. The security officer in front of Natasha didn’t seem surprised by this, but every other set of eyes in the room were suddenly locked on her.

An  _arrest_ warrant?

Steve stared blankly for a few seconds before he glanced nervously at Bucky.

Natasha... She couldn’t be here to arrest Bucky, could she? Why would Natasha have come here for that, if that was what she was doing? No, there was no way. It wasn’t possible.

(Steve wished he could ignore the part of his brain that was asking, _“But then who did she have a warrant for?”_ )

Bucky looked pale and twitchy again, so Steve reached a hand towards him and pressed his fingers lightly against Bucky’s hip.

“Ma’am,” the security guard replied. Natasha glared at him. “ _Agent_. I’m sorry, but we can’t allow a scene to be caused because of this.”

Natasha smiled, shark-like and off-putting. Steve wanted to take a step back, and he wasn’t even the person she was talking to. “Officer,” Natasha said pleasantly. “If he cooperates and doesn’t make a spectacle of himself, then there won’t be a scene, but I need you to hand him over before I’m forced to call for back-up.”

“Agent, I can’t just-”

“I have an arrest warrant with Harold Barton’s name on it, so you’re going to stop talking and get him down here.”

The room seemed a million times smaller, suddenly, than it had been just a few seconds ago. Steve really didn’t know what was going on anymore.

Harold?

“My... My dad?” Clint asked. He looked just about as confused as Steve felt.

In fact, it almost felt like the entire room was off-kilter and spinning. There was something especially awful about it, and Steve almost couldn’t stand it. But his mind was racing and his heart was pounding and nothing made sense, and it was so difficult to focus on anything when he was trying to think this hard and still not coming up with any answers.

“Steve,” Bucky whispered.

Steve turned his head just slightly to look at Bucky. He’d barely moved from, it seemed, and everything about the way he was holding his body just screamed  _tension_. Bucky did, however, look even paler than he had before, and his eyes were misty now. Steve’s hand was still on Bucky’s hip (somehow, he hadn’t even noticed that he had yet to move it), so he could feel the way Bucky’s entire body was trembling.

“What?” Steve croaked out.

“S-Steve, I’m so sorry,” Bucky whispered. He grabbed Steve’s hand from where it rested on his hip and gripped it in his hand. “This... I’m s-so sorry. This is all my fault.”

This really wasn’t helping clear up any of the confusion Steve felt.

“What are you talking about?”

His voice sounded like it wasn’t even coming from him, so distant and far-off and not right that Steve wouldn’t have even been able to place it if he hadn’t felt his mouth move to shape the words. Bucky was shaking his head, teary eyed.

“I’m- Fuck, I’m so sorry. I’m... I’m so-”

Clearly, Bucky was about to have some kind of breakdown or something, so Steve gently steered him away from the group that was gathering in the foyer and down one of the hallways off to the side. They were alone(-ish) here, at least, and they would be able to tell if something else was going on in the foyer. Steve pushed the events happening in the group they’d left outside of his mind and focused on Bucky.

Bucky was shaking still. He looked so pale that he was practically a ghost, fading into the background of white plaster and shining tile under the bright lighting of the main floor of the White House. Steve reached out and framed Bucky’s face with his hands, concerning bringing his lips down into a frown.

“Buck,” Steve said quietly. “Calm down, okay? Just breathe. I don’t know what’s going on and you’re freaking me out.”

That seemed to calm Bucky down a bit, at least, because he took in a big gulp of air, trying to calm his panicked breaths.

Finally, Bucky seemed to calm down enough to get his breathing back to normal and he moved back, his hands shaking.

Steve was starting to get really concerned.

“This is my fault,” Bucky said abruptly. “Okay? It... I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Steve. You have to know that. I didn’t mean for this to happen. I just thought- Fuck. I don’t know what I thought. I don’t know what I wanted to happen. Just... Not. Not this.”

What the fuck was even going on?

“What are you talking about?” Steve asked, his eyes narrowed.

The look Bucky turned on him then was slightly hysterical. “I gave them Rollins, but I didn’t think that would lead back to _him_.”

Steve jerked back. “Wh-What?”

“I’m-” Bucky took a step back- or, more accurately, he tripped backward- his hands reaching out for the wall to balance himself. “I didn’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t know what Rollins has on him and I’m _sorry_ , but this is _my_ fault, Steve.”

“Bucky, what the fuck?” Steve asked.

Bucky looked so hurt, then, and Steve almost wanted to take the words back, but there was a part of him that stood by them, and the rest of him knew that there wasn’t anything he could do to change them.

Steve cleared his throat and shook his head. “What... Buck. What are you involved in that... You only gave them one name? How many names do you  _have?_ ”

“Too many.” Bucky moved another step back. Steve didn’t even know what he should say at this point. “Steve. I know... I know too many things.”

“Why didn’t you _tell_ them, then?”

“Because I _can’t!”_ Bucky snapped. His arms were crossed over his chest defensively and there was something dark and almost feral in his eyes.

Steve really, really didn’t like this.

Bucky’s shoulders drooped. He sagged back against the wall, appearing as some sort of sad marionette doll whose strings had been cut. It was heartbreaking to see him like that and know that there was nothing he could do to help. Steve hated it. But, still, he didn’t move.

He just stared at Bucky. Like a total jackass.

“I can’t,” Bucky repeated. “I don’t expect you to understand, Steve. I promise I don’t. But trust me when I say that I _can’t_ tell them anything more than I already did.”

Steve didn’t say anything, couldn’t. Wouldn’t. He didn’t know. Nothing made sense right now, and Steve kind of just wanted to go to sleep.

“Why are they arresting Harold?”

Bucky shook his head, shrugging helplessly. An uncomfortable feeling settled in the pit of Steve’s stomach. Was this another lie, then?

Steve turned away, glaring at the wall.

“I... I don’t know,” Bucky said haltingly. “I. Um. I wasn’t- I didn’t. Shit. I didn’t know much about Harold. But, um. He’s friends with  _t_ _hem_ , so I’m sure he’s done some awful things if he’s anything like the rest of them. And... And I know he  _knows_ , Steve. He knows and he took advantage of that and he never  _said_ anything. He even-  _fuck._ ”

Steve was kind of tempted to punch something. Not Bucky, of course (never Bucky), but he really needed a way to calm down and this wasn’t helping at all.

The voices coming from down the hallway had picked up in volume. Steve shook his head, his shoulders slumped.

Finally, he turned his head to look at Bucky.

He swallowed against the pain that welled up in him at the sight of Bucky standing there, looking so small and broken. It was obvious that Bucky was hurting. Steve wasn’t blind. He didn’t know how anyone could  _miss_ the fact that Bucky was in pain.

But Steve didn’t know what to do to help him, anymore.

He had tried. Was trying still, even.

And all Bucky did was lie to him and keep secrets from him.

“I need to go see what’s going on out there,” Steve said quietly. Bucky made a pained little noise. “Look, I’m... Fuck, I don’t know. I’ll talk to you later, okay? I promise. But right now my Ma and my step-brother need me, and... and I care about you, Buck, but I don’t know what to say to you right now.”

“Steve...” Bucky took a step towards him before he stopped himself, rocking back on his heels.

Steve closed the distance, gripping gently at Bucky’s hand. The motion seemed to startle Bucky.

“I care about you,” Steve repeated. He didn’t know what else he was supposed to say. “A lot, Buck. And I don’t know what’s going on with you, but if you... If you don’t want to tell me then I’m not going to make you. But I have to go take care of my family, okay? And... And, yes. I’m upset right now. And a little mad and I don’t understand what’s going on, but I’m not going to keep being mad at you, okay? I’m not going to hate you. I can’t ever do that.”

They were silent until Bucky flipped his hand over and slid his fingers in between Steve’s so their hands were interlocked.

“Okay,” Bucky agreed. He didn’t look any less upset, but he nodded nonetheless. “I’ll, um. Just call me tonight or tomorrow or something? I’ll talk to you when I can.”

Steve shrugged. He was a little antsy about the fact that Bucky was still holding his hand. He just couldn’t help it.

“Of course.”

They stared at each other, just for a moment, and there were so many things unsaid between them. Steve was tempted to just start blurting out whatever truth came to mind next, but he resisted. Instead, he let Bucky whisper, “I’m going to go.”

Steve nodded. “Okay.”

“Go be with your family,” Bucky added.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed, and he watched as Bucky slipped away from him.

Again.

_. . ._

The next few hours were full of tension and pacing.

Clint was a mess.

Steve had relocated them both to the Map Room- for lack of any other place to go, really- after his conversation with Bucky in the hallway, and ever since then Clint had yet to move. Steve was really starting to worry about him. He likely would have started worrying earlier, but Clint was still breathing, and every once and a while his eyes would dart around the room before they moved back to stare at the floor, so there was that, at least.

It was still worrying.

Steve was aware that they’d been in the Map Room for the past few hours- he knew time was passing, even if everything about their situation felt frozen- so it wasn’t a huge surprise when his mother came into the room, her entire body tense and on guard.

“Ma,” Steve said, relief seeping into his voice. He couldn’t help it. “Do you know what’s going on?”

Something in his mother’s eyes hardened, but she reached out and pressed a hand against his arm gently.

“Natasha called me,” she said quietly. “To talk to me about everything.”

Clint moved for the first time in hours, then, stirring enough to turn and look at Sarah. Part of Steve wondered if he had moved at the thought of more information, or if it had been Natasha’s name that had finally caused him to change positions, but he didn’t dare ask that. It seemed like the entirely wrong things to say, really.

Steve frowned. “And?”

Sarah sighed and slumped down on the couch that Clint was settled on.

 _Oh_ . So that definitely wasn’t a good thing then. _Yikes_.

Steve felt his mouth narrow into a grimace.

“She told me that Harold confessed to what they brought him in for,” Sarah said. “And he’ll go on trial within the next few months.”

“What did they arrest him for? Why did they even arrest him?” Steve demanded.

His mother glanced nervously at Clint before she finally said, “someone they’d managed to arrest a few days ago gave up his name. Jack Rollins or... Something, I think was what his name was.”

 _Jack Rollins_.

Steve had already known that Rollins was the one who’d given the FBI information on Harold- or, at least, Bucky had said as much when he was rambling earlier, and Steve had figured that he didn’t have a reason to lie- but it was still completely different to hear it now. It was a confirmation that the conversation in the hall from earlier had been real, and Steve decidedly did  _not_ want to think about that.

The back of his knees hit a chair behind him, and Steve let himself fall backward into it, his arms wrapped around his middle.

“What did he confess to, then?”

Steve’s head snapped around so he could stare at Clint, his eyes widening. Clint’s voice sounded a bit raspy and awkward, but he was speaking again nonetheless.

Sarah sighed, her shoulders sagging. “Clint... Honey.”

“Just tell me, Sarah,” Clint said. He stared up at the two of them through his fingers before hiding his head in his hands again. “Please. I already know it’s bad. I just feel it. So just... Don’t keep it from me. Just tell me, please.”

“He, ah.” Steve watched, a hint of fear in the pit of his stomach as he noticed that his mother’s hands were shaking. “He hired Rollins and another man as hitmen. To kill your mother and brother.”

Clint’s shoulders jerked in a way that looked painful and then he stopped moving altogether, his entire body completely frozen.

Steve was pretty sure he was going to throw up.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

There wasn’t much else to say. Not really.

“So he’s going to prison,” Clint concluded, once he had gathered himself enough to move again. “For a long time. The rest of his fucking life, I hope.”

“Clint.” Steve wasn’t sure what the tone on Clint’s name even meant, really. It was a plea, in a sense, for Clint to stay calm, but it was also sorry, heavy in the words an attempt at saying  _sorry_ even though an apology was meaningless.

Thankfully, Clint seemed to understand what he meant. “I’m... I’m okay, Steve.”

Steve really doubted that. It must have shown on his face because Clint raised his shoulders in an attempt at a shrug. He turned to look out the window.

“I’m... I don’t know,” Clint finally settled on. “I’m... I feel sick, you know? But part of me almost isn’t surprised. I think... I think I’ve kind of always known that he was hiding things from me. And I’d... I’d rather know than spend the rest of my life not knowing that he’s the reason that my mom and brother-”

Clint’s voice cut off with a sharp inhale. The noise was so pained, and Steve couldn’t help but wince.

“I have to release a statement,” Sarah said quietly, her eyes locked on Clint. “I... I don’t want to say anything in it that will upset you, Clint, but I need...”

Clint shook his head. His eyes dropped back down to the carpet. “Say whatever you need to about him. I don’t care. He fucking deserves it.”

Steve reached out, placing a hand on Clint’s arm. “Clint,” he said quietly. “Are... Um. Are you...”

“I’m okay.” Clint didn’t look at him, but his voice seemed solid on the words. “I’m... I’m kind of numb, but it’s okay. I’ll be okay. I’m just... I’m going to go call Nat or something.”

Steve just stared at Clint for a few minutes, his eyes narrowing. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

And, really, there was nothing to do other than let him walk away.

Steve just wished there was something he could say.

He knew there wasn’t.

_. . ._

Press conferences always stressed Steve out. He couldn’t even imagine what the feeling of being interviewed in one of them might be because all he knew was that even sitting there watching them had nerves twisting up in his gut.

A series of lights flashed as Steve leaned around the corner just a bit to watch his mother. She held herself regally, her head held high, her shoulders relaxed, and, for just a seconds, Steve was in awe of her. His Ma was amazing. She was brave and strong and the fucking  _President_ and everything about her was everything Steve had always striven to be.

Well, minus the president part. He figured he could do without that.

Still, it was amazing to sit back and watch his Ma do her job. She was incredible at it. She really, really was.

He couldn’t even imagine what the person who had the job next would do, even though he was well aware that the possibility of someone else being elected within the next year was still something that could happen. Obviously.

An awful feeling settled in his gut at the thought of Alexander Pierce trying to do his Ma’s job even half as well as she did it. It was impossible. Really. Because his Ma was a good person, and no one would ever be able to convince him that  _Pierce_ was a good person.

Nope. No way.

Steve trusted his gut feeling. And his gut said that Alexander Pierce was kind of shady.

The look in Bucky’s eyes whenever anybody said the name Alexander Pierce also told him that as well. Part of Steve still wished that this was something he could ask Bucky about, but he doubted he’d ever be able to say something to Bucky, in fear that it would only make things awkward or make Bucky uncomfortable.

Steve would never want to do that, after all. Not on purpose.

“Hello,” his Ma said suddenly, and Steve looked up just in time to see her adjust the microphone and place herself at the podium. “Thank you all for being here tonight.”

There was another series of flashes, but no one said much of anything. It was obvious that they were all waiting for his Ma to speak. So, without much preamble, she did just that.

“Ah. I’ve called this press conference today to talk about something important and more... personal than many of the things I discuss.” Sarah cleared her throat, leaning forward on her elbows before righting herself to a more Adult Doing Very Adult Things kind of pose. Steve watched her with a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Today, my husband and... soon to be ex-husband Congressman Harold Barton was arrested by the FBI for charges that he’s now confessed to.”

There was an uproar of whisper-shouts at that, but the journalists all seemed to sense that Madam President Sarah Rogers-Barton (soon to be just Sarah Rogers again) wasn’t done talking, and they definitely weren’t about to interrupt her.

They weren’t idiots, after all.

“I’ve already filed for divorce,” Sarah offered as a preface, pursing her lips. “And the FBI has asked me not to say anything about the charges against Mr. Barton until they release them. However, I think there are... There are many valuable lessons to be learned from things like this. There are people who have done bad things among us. That doesn’t mean all of them are bad. However, there are also people like Mr. Barton, who have done bad things and are bad people. And even though acknowledging that is terrifying, it’s something we must do. We must realize that there is bad in the world and that both bad people and good people do bad things. It’s what we do afterward that counts towards who we are. The merit of your character is not made up of all your bad choices, but instead is made up of how you react to those bad choices. And that’s how we know that we’re allowed to hope. We must put aside our fear and see the good things that each and every one of us is capable of. Then, once those things are in sight, we must strive towards them.”

Silence hung heavy in the room and Steve actually considered standing up and applauding for a brief second.

Sarah tilted her head back a bit, a small smile on her lips. “Any questions?” She asked.

The silence ended then, shouting and flashing lights picked up all around the front of the room, and Steve scooted further backstage, hoping that no one would be able to see him if he couldn’t see them.

He figured it was a good strategy. Maybe.

“Madam President,” someone asked. “What does this mean for Clint Barton?”

Steve’s jaw dropped, and- even though he was hidden backstage he still had a good view of it- his Ma’s eyes filled with a dark sort of rage. It was replaced quickly with a calmness that barely held back the rest of it.

“Clint Barton has done absolutely nothing wrong,” Sarah said shortly. Her tone was as fierce and pulsing with anger as her words seemed to be. Steve realized ever so slightly. He hadn’t even realized he was so tense. “And he is my son, just as he is Steve’s brother. He will be remaining here with Steve and me because the three of us are family.”

“Madam President?” A new voice spoke, this one softer and a bit more polite sounding. “How does this new revelation about what kind of person Mr. Barton is make you feel?”

“I...” His Ma paused. She was quiet for almost too long before she continued, “I feel shocked more than anything else. I... I feel like I should have noticed something before that would be a hint, but I- I didn’t. I don’t know what I could have seen that would have helped me see the darkness behind him. More than anything else, however, I think I wish to put this all behind me as best I can. I’ll... I don’t think I’ll ever truly be able to do this but, at the same time, I know that I have a very important job to do and I have two children to help on their way to success and millions of people to look after and I take that very seriously. And absolutely nothing, not even a filthy, sociopathic, lying ex-husband, will impede on my ability to do my job.”

There was a pause, and the air felt charged with Sarah’s words. Steve bit back a smile as he heard the reporter reply, “of course. Thank you, Madam President.”

Steve’s phone buzzed, then, startling him enough that he practically jumped out of his seat, his eyes widening. He glanced down at his phone, his breath catching in his chest as he read over the message Bucky had sent him.

_i’m really sorry about earlier, steve. i hope you’re not still upset with me. i’m. i'm sorry that i couldn’t tell them everything i know. i’m not as good as you. or as brave. and i’m really, really sorry for that. i hope you know that. i wish i could be._

Steve swallowed, his hands clenching into fists. _Oh_. Okay then.

He wasn’t really sure what to make of that.

While Steve stared at his phone, feeling entirely out of place and useless, he was vaguely aware that the press conference was still going on. However, all he could do was stare at Bucky’s text, a bit of confusion hanging in the pit of his stomach.

What did that even  _mean?_

Steve had never really viewed himself as good or brave- hell, he didn’t even have the guts to tell his Ma that he didn’t want to go into politics- but knowing that Bucky thought that about him was almost comforting. It was kind of sweet, weirdly enough.

Frowning, Steve opened his messages, letting his fingers hesitate before he replied, _it’s okay, Bucky. I’m not mad at you. I promise. Just. Um. Things are really crazy right now. I’ll text you or call you later tonight, okay? Thank you for texting me_.

Steve sent the text before he could think about it, ignoring the part of his brain that went off on a quiet rampage of  _was that too formal?_ and  _that sounded so lame, Steve_.

Oh well. Right now he had to focus.

His Ma and Clint needed him right now, and that was the most important thing.

He tried to ignore the part of him that wondered if Bucky might need him just as much as they did.

_. . ._

After the press conference was over, Steve had found himself wandering around the halls of the White House until he found the room that his Ma had settled in. The library was entirely too quiet, and a little too dark, but that didn’t stop Steve from entering it anyways. He moved slowly and settled on the couch next to his Ma, not even bothering to announce his presence.

They didn’t say anything- they couldn’t, really, didn’t even need to- but Steve rested his head on his Ma’s shoulder anyway, sighing softly to himself.

Sarah leaned into him in return, pressing a kiss to his hair. In that moment, all Steve felt was warmth and safety and love, and he  _knew_ that he had to tell his Ma about school, even though it was probably a really awful time. Still, Steve couldn’t hold himself back from it anymore. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Not right now.

So Steve swallowed, took a deep breath, and tried to find the words to say. Nothing really came to mind, but he fought to ground himself anyways. He needed to do this.

“Ma?” Steve asked quietly. His voice was  _shaking_. He couldn’t ever remember being this nervous in his life.

Fuck, why was he even doing this now?

His mother turned away from the window to look at him, arching an eyebrow. She seemed like she was alright. Then again, Steve figured his mother just always looked like she was put together, no matter what was going on in her life. He figured this was some kind of proof of that, considering the fact that the past few days had pretty much been hell for her.

“What is it, Steve?” Sarah said. She didn’t look mad, and her tone definitely wasn’t off-putting. Instead, she opened up her arms and Steve found himself sliding into them, his eyes clenched shut.

“Ma...”

Sarah sighed. “Talk to me, Steve. I can’t help you if you don’t say anything.

Steve cleared his throat awkwardly. “I, um. I have something I’ve gotta tell you, Ma.”

“I’ll listen to anything you have to say,” his mother told him gently.

Steve smiled despite himself and forced himself to be calm.

This was it, then.

“I don’t want to get my degree in Political Science, Ma,” Steve whispered. He pressed his face against his mother’s shoulder, swallowing. “I want to study art.”

There was a long silence. Steve felt his stomach drop to the bottom of his toes.

Fuck. _Fuck_.

“Steve,” Sarah finally said. She pulled away from him just a bit, staring at him very seriously. “Steven, look at me.”

Steve did as she asked.

Sarah laughed, then, shaking her head. “Steven, you stubborn boy. I _know_ , baby. I know you don’t want to go into politics. I know that you don’t want to study political science.”

“You-” Steve blinked dumbly. “You know?”

“Steve.” His mother bit back a laugh, but her eyes looked a little misty. “You’re so obvious, honey. You couldn’t hide anything from me even if you wanted to.”

“You...” Steve made a face. “You know and you don’t care?”

Sarah rolled her eyes. Actually rolled her eyes at him. Steve wasn’t entirely sure what to do about that. “Steve,” she said, shaking her head. “I want you to do what makes you happy. Not what everyone else in our family has done. If you want to be an artist, then I want nothing more for you to go out and be an artist. Okay?”

Steve bit back the tears that threatened to overwhelm him. Fuck, he was being ridiculous. “Okay,” he agreed on a whisper. “Okay. Thank you, Ma. Thank you so much.”

His mother just smiled. “Next time, don’t wait two years to tell me something important, yeah?”

Sniffling, Steve let out a bark of laughter and blinked back tears. “I promise I won’t. I swear, Ma.”

“Good.”

“I-” Steve paused. He didn’t speak, then, couldn’t bring himself to say anything, even though he knew there were words he probably ought to be saying. “I think I’m in love with someone.”

Well, shit. Okay. That was one way to do it.

Sarah looked startled. She definitely hadn’t expected that either. Steve was kind of weirdly pleased by that, even though he knew he shouldn’t be. Especially because he now had to tell his Ma that the person he was in love with was Bucky. Who was still engaged. To a massive dickhead.

Steve didn’t really know if Alexander Pierce was a dickhead or not, but the fact that he might be was something Steve took comfort in.

“You’re...” Sarah’s voice trailed off. She seemed to be struggling to find words. Steve had never seen his mother do that before, and watching it now was almost alarming. He wanted to ask if she was okay, but she started talking again before he could. “Who?”

A pained smile had forced his lips upwards before Steve could even stop it.

“Bucky Barnes,” he whispered.

His mother, at the very least, didn’t seem surprised by that. Instead, she just nodded, her eyes moving back to the window.

“I kind of expected as much,” she replied. Finally, his Ma turned her head to the side to look at him, a small smile on her lips. “I... I suppose I had hoped you weren’t, but I suspected as much.”

Steve pressed his lips together to stop them from moving- he wasn’t entirely sure what shape they were trying to form, but he knew that they were trying to go  _somewhere_ \- and nodded. He stared down at his feet and watched the way his toes curled around the strands of carpet below him.

It was better to stare at nothing than to watch his Ma’s face right now anyways, Steve figured.

“I couldn’t help it.” His voice was still barely louder than a whisper, wavering over word after word so hard it was practically shaking. “I tried not to. I really did. But he’s just... He’s so wonderful, Ma, and he deserves so much better than Pierce. I don’t even know why he’s with him.”

Sarah sighed. She reached out and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and Steve melted into her embrace, his eyes clenching shut. It was nice to feel loved right now. He needed it. Especially if he was going to sit here talking about Bucky and what he deserved and what he didn’t have. It hurt enough to think about it, and it was even worse to actually talk about.

“Sometimes people don’t think they’re worth more than what they see themselves as,” Sarah said quietly. “And, usually, their perceptions of themselves are a bit twisted.”

Steve paused, his eyes widening a bit as he looked at his mother. “So... What? You think I should tell him what he’s worth? Would that even... Would that even really do anything?”

“I don’t know.” Steve felt his Ma’s shoulders move in a shrug. It was kind of weird to feel and not see, but Steve didn’t bother to move. “But it might be worth it just to try.”

“What if it’s not?” Steve asked quietly. “What if... What if he hates me for it? Or doesn’t want to be friends with me anymore? What if he like tells Pierce and Pierce makes it his personal mission to ruin my life? He’s a politician, right? He can do that shit.”

His Ma was definitely laughing at him. Steve could feel it, and it helped calm him down just a bit, but on some level he didn’t even care. He was kind of in panic mode. Like really, really deep in panic mode.

“Steve,” his Ma finally said, a hint of amusement in her voice. “Sweetheart. Take a deep breath. It’s going to be okay. I’m sure Pierce won’t try and destroy your life. Especially once he knows you’re going to be an artist and not a politician.”

“You’re right,” Steve agreed dryly, taking a deep breath. “He’ll probably think I’m destroying my own life anyways.”

His Ma laughed, a chortling little sound that had Steve biting back laughter himself. His toes curled in the carpet again, squishing the soft material under his feet. The softness of the moment didn’t let him relax anymore, though. Instead, Steve was sure he could feel the tension still clinging to his shoulders with every passing breath. There was no escaping the panic that he felt in his gut when he thought about his situation for too long.

He’d kind of fucked himself over, hadn’t he?

“Just do what’s best, Steve,” Sarah said, then, her voice quiet. “You do what’s best for yourself and don’t think about everyone else for once. You deserve that.”

Steve, with no words left to say, relaxed back against his Ma’s side, his eyes fluttering shut. He nodded, his entire being drifting away from the panic that had overtaken him only a little while ago. Now he just felt tired.

“Go to bed,” Sarah ordered. “And go talk to your boy.”

Yeah, Steve wished.

“He’s not my boy,” he protested quietly. The  _look_ that his Ma gave him made Stee decide that, yeah, he definitely wasn’t going to argue that point with her. No thanks.

Sarah just hummed, nodding her head a bit. “Well. Maybe you should go see if he’s willing to change that.”

An unbidden smile broke across Steve’s face, and he let himself relax back into the couch. He grabbed his phone, unlocking it to go ahead and text Bucky.

He didn’t even see the smile his Ma sent at his back. But, in the end, he didn’t really need to.

He already knew.


	6. In Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, all! 
> 
> I just really quickly wanted to thank everyone so much for the feedback that I've been getting for this story. I really enjoyed writing it, and I'm really glad to know that you guys are enjoying reading it. We're approaching the end- only two more chapters left after this one!- and I just wanted to say that it means a lot to me that you all are enjoying this story as much as you are.
> 
> This chapter is a little bit shorter but (just as a quick sidenote) a little bit heavier than some of the other ones have been, at times!

Bucky had agreed to meet him at the White House again.

Briefly, Steve had almost considered asking him if they could meet at Bucky’s house before he realized that Bucky always seemed to be trying his best to avoid Pierce as much as possible. Steve had figured it was best not to point that out, even if he’d always found it a little odd.

So Bucky had arrived at a little after noon. He was wearing black skinny jeans and a white t-shirt with the words _you used to be alright what happened?_ proudly emblazoned across the front in backward, oddly spaced lettering, with his black combat boots and leather jacket. He looked ridiculously hot and Steve decided then and there that everything about Bucky Barnes- from his fashionable outfits to his impeccable hairstyles to his icy blue eyes to his pretty red lips split wide in the prettiest of smiles- was absolutely unfair.

And then he smiled, all wide and pearly white in between red lips, and Steve wanted to die just a little bit.

“Hey,” Bucky said quietly. “What’s up?”

“Bucky. Hi,” Steve greeted, a little breathless. A smile split across his face in return, and he stepped to the side a bit so Bucky could move fully into the visitor’s foyer. Bucky did just that, toeing his shoes against the white tile.

Briefly, Bucky looked around. He smiled and nodded in greeting when he spotted Phil before he turned his attention back to Steve. “Are we headed somewhere or do you want to stay in the foyer all day, babe?”

Steve tried his hardest to ignore the fact that Bucky had just called him babe. He honestly did try really, really hard. He also kind of failed epically at it, but that was a different matter altogether.

“We can head up to my room,” Steve suggested. “Or we can to the solarium if you’d prefer.”

Bucky just shrugged, his head tilting back a bit with the force of the smile that brightened his face. “Whichever you prefer, Steve. Either one of them is just fine with me.”

Steve shrugged a bit, but he headed towards the stairs anyways. “Let’s go to the solarium,” he finally settled on. It would be pretty empty this time of day, after all. “I don’t think you’ve been there yet, and it’s got a great view.”

“Okay.” Bucky smiled, pressing a smile into his shoulder. “That sounds lovely.”

Steve headed up the second flight of stairs and steered their path in that direction. Bucky followed him wordlessly, and Steve didn’t offer any conversation starters. He wasn’t entirely sure what he even wanted to say to Bucky. Steve had wanted to see Bucky, yes, and he wanted to tell him about his feelings, but he also had no clue when an appropriate moment to do that would be.

It was a struggle.

They reached the third floor and turned a corner to the main hallway. Steve reached the door of the solarium before Bucky did and he held the door open, smiling just slightly at Bucky as he passed by. Bucky smiled back, wide and bright, and he brushed his hand against Steve’s as he walked past. It was kind of unbearably cute and really didn’t help Steve feel any less nervous than he did right now.

_Ugh_.

Steve wandered into the room and closed the door behind him. When he turned around he was greeted with the sight of Bucky sprawled out across the couch, a wicked kind of grin on his face. Steve swallowed a bit but settled into the chair across from Bucky nonetheless.

“So, what’s up?” Bucky asked as he sunk a bit lower on the couch. “You seemed all antsy in your texts.”

Steve meant to open his mouth and say  _I really needed to tell you about my feelings for you_ or some other bullshit like that, but all that came out was, “I don’t know. Things have just been really tense the past few days and I needed to get away from it.”

_Wait, what?_

Bucky was already nodding, however, his expression kind of serious, but mostly just soft. “Okay,” he agreed quietly. “I’m glad you texted me, then. I’m... I’m happy you’re not still angry at me, Steve.

“I wasn’t ever  _angry_ at you,” Steve said, a pained grimace twisting at his lips. “I swear. I just... I didn’t know how to handle what you said. You... There are some things that shouldn’t be kept secret, Buck.”

Something in Bucky’s expression soured just a bit, but he nodded nonetheless. “I know, Steve. There’s only so much I can do, though. And I... I don’t know everything. If I had known that Harold- well. I would have said something.”

Steve frowned, but he nodded nonetheless. “Okay,” he agreed quietly. “I believe you.” And he did. “I just wish... I wish that we didn’t have to keep doing this.”

“Keep doing what?” Bucky asked.

For a brief moment, Steve didn’t talk. He just watched as Bucky ducked his head, strands of hair falling over his forehead and across his face. He was beautiful- absolutely stunning- and Steve had yet to put words to it. He didn’t even know if he could put words to the way that Bucky Barnes made him feel.

A large part of Steve doubted that words for it had ever truly existed.

Steve scoffed, shrugging a bit. It was a helpless motion, but he didn’t even really know how to answer Bucky, right now. “Keep... Keep pretending, Bucky. I hate this back and forth that we keep doing. Where you pretend that you can’t ever tell me anything and I sit here and wonder if you trust me at all.”

" _S_ _teve_.” Bucky’s mouth was hanging open just a bit. There was a kind of desperate look in his eyes, but Steve just shook his head and blocked it all out to the best of his abilities. “Of course I trust you. I trust you more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

The words should have made him feel better. Steve wished that they had. Instead, a kind of ugly feeling settled in the pit of his stomach, and he found that it was impossible for him to chase the feeling away. No matter what Bucky said or what Steve wished he could believe, there was still so much evidence that seemed to point to the fact that all Bucky did was keep  _lying_ to him.

He tried to fight against the way his stomach was twisting into knots, but Steve figured out quickly that it was kind of impossible. So he just gave into it, letting it wash over him. It was probably a really shitty idea, but that wasn’t about to stop him.

“Then why can’t you ever tell me the truth?” Steve asked quietly.

Bucky’s head snapped back at that. The look on his face was somewhere in between panic and hurt, and Steve couldn’t figure out which was worse. Still, though- mostly because he was a stubborn idiot who didn’t know when to bite his tongue- he stood his ground, watching Bucky carefully through narrowed eyes.

“I...” Bucky bit down on his bottom lip and he threw his hands out a bit. He’d been gripping at his hair enough in the past few minutes that it looked like a bird’s nest now. “I can’t.”

Steve shook his head. “That’s not an _answer_.”

“It’s the only answer I can give you,” Bucky snapped.

“It’s an excuse,” Steve said, his eyes slipping into a glare. He stood up from the chair he’d settled in and begun to pace around the solarium. It was pointless, but he needed to move and get some of the awful nerves out of the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t stand this anymore. “I can’t keep listening to excuses over and over again.”

Bucky moved, then, getting up off the couch. He didn’t start pacing. Actually, it almost seemed like he’d stood up just so he could move further away from Steve- the thought hurt just as much as it didn’t surprise him at all.

“Stop,” Bucky said suddenly.

Steve crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll stop when you stop.”

The desperation on Bucky’s face made Steve feel kind of sick to his stomach, but he didn’t try and question it. He didn’t have any other options at this point, other than to stick with the path he’d already put himself on. Neither of them was ever going to be able to forget this conversation, after all, so Steve couldn’t pretend he wanted to take it all back. He couldn’t take back the parts that he wanted to take back either, as much as he wished that he  _was_ capable of that.

Bucky whirled on him, then, his jaw clenched. He looked a bit hunched over, but that didn’t stop him from angrily demanding, “Stop  _what?_ ”

“Just stop lying to me!” Steve blurted out suddenly. His hands were shaking, so he closed them into fists and pressed them against his side, trying to fight against the anger that threatened to overwhelm him. “Just tell me the truth! For once, Bucky, _damn it_ , just tell me the fucking truth!”

Bucky looked like a mess. His eyes were a little wild in a way Steve hadn’t seen before, his hair was falling all over the place. He looked like he hadn’t slept in years. There was a sense of cold anger to him that Steve had never seen before, and he found that he didn’t like it at all. It was unsettling.

Steve stood and watched as Bucky whirled away from him, his shoulders vibrating with strong emotion- anger? Fear? Sadness? Steve wasn’t entirely sure.

“Please,” Steve begged.

The words seemed to have some effect on Bucky, because the shaking of his shoulders seemed to slow and Steve couldn’t help but wonder if Bucky was finally about to say something to him and-

“I’m a prostitute.”

\- that really hadn’t been what Steve had expected to hear.

“Um.” Steve choked the word out, fighting past the blockage that seemed to have gathered in his throat. “I’m sorry, what?”

Bucky laughed wildly, turning around to face him again. He threw his arms out, pressing himself up on his toes so he was almost the same height as Steve, and made an awful face that was part-heartbreak-and-part-horrified-amusement.

“I’m a fucking prostitute, Steve.”

Steve shook his head a few times. “No, no, I mean. I... I understood that but also? Um. What?”

“I...” Bucky sighed, suddenly, pinching at the bridge of his nose. He seemed to have calmed down a bit, at least enough so that he could talk properly. “You should sit down if you want me to tell you. It’s kind of a long story.”

That sounded ominous, but Steve settled down into the chair behind him anyways, his brow furrowing a bit as he stared at Bucky. He didn’t say anything- couldn’t say anything, not really. Instead, he just shrugged, nodding at Bucky.

Bucky took a moment to gather himself, his lips drawing inwards and his shoulders tensing before he said, “my family was really rich, back in Romania.”

Steve blinked a few times. _Um. What?_

“Sorry,” he said. “What... What are we... um?”

Bucky grinned wryly at him. He toed his shoe against the floor as he shrugged, looking a little bit amused. Mostly, though, he just looked sad. 

“We were,” Bucky finally offered. “I had private lessons in anything I wanted to learn. I, um. I took dance lessons and piano lessons. I learned how to speak four languages early on in my life. I was very well educated.”

The direction the conversation was going in really made no sense to Steve anymore, but he nodded along anyway. Steve trusted Bucky, so Bucky must be going somewhere with this new line of conversation, even if Steve really didn’t see how this connected to his claim that he was a _prostitute_.

That smile on Bucky’s face only grew more amused as he seemed to catch on to what Steve was trying to do. He didn’t call Steve out on it, though, and instead just smiled, ducking his head.

“My entire family was involved in a car accident when I was twelve.”

Steve’s head snapped upwards, his mouth falling open as he stared at Bucky. “Wh-What?”

Bucky didn’t look up, but his shoulders lifted in a shrug. “My younger sister and mother were killed. I, ah. My father avoided most of the impact, as the other car hit us on the passenger side. My left arm was injured, but nothing too badly. I just have a lot of nerve damage.”

A few words arguing that  _a lot of nerve damag_ _e_  really was more than _‘nothing too bad’_ sprang to the tip of Steve’s tongue, but he bit down on the inside of his cheeks to stop them from spilling over. He didn’t want to interrupt Bucky, not now. If anything, he figured it would only ruin the gravity that this story held in Bucky’s life, and Steve didn’t want to do that.

Bucky deserved to have his stories listened to.

“My father blamed himself for the accident, even though the other driver was really drunk, which caused him to drive through a red light and hit us. But my father was, uh, never the same after that. I believe he was heavily depressed at the very least, but he didn’t like to tell me anything. Within the next two years of my life, he had spent all of our money on alcohol and gambling. By the time I was fourteen we were living on the streets.”

“Bucky,” Steve whispered. He didn’t know what else to say. There wasn’t really anything else he  _could_ say.

“He died when I was fifteen,” Bucky said. His words were steady, his face completely blank, and Steve was fairly certain that there was no worse feeling than this. Bucky was so steady, so calm, and all Steve could picture was the Bucky of the past, shivering alone on a street corner. “I tried to live off of the money I got from begging for a while, but it didn’t really work. I went most days without food.”

Steve struggled to find something to say- but, God, what could he, Steve Rogers, who had spent twelve years of his life living in the fucking White House, say other than a pointlessly empty _“I’m sorry”?_ \- and even opened and closed his mouth a few times before Bucky looked up at him and shook his head. Steve nodded slowly, biting down on his bottom lip. _Don’t talk. Got it._

“The legal age of consent in Romania is fifteen,” Bucky continued, his tone taking on a breezy, uncaring quality. “So... I did what I thought was my only option at the time, and decided to become a prostitute. It, um. In Romania it’s illegal to pay for sex but it’s not illegal to offer it so... So I wasn’t doing anything illegal, and there were plenty of people willing to break the law to have sex with me. Which was sort of an ego booster as much as it was really awkward.”

That actually caused Steve to  _laugh_ , which he thought was horribly inappropriate, but it seemed to relax Bucky nonetheless, so Steve figured he’d done the right thing. As Steve’s laughter tapered off, Bucky smiled briefly and took a deep breath, looking as if he was trying his hardest to gather himself.

“I lived that way for almost three years.” Bucky’s voice was almost too quiet, and Steve reached out to grab his hand, unable to help himself. Bucky needed something to ground him, and Steve was more than willing to be that thing, if only for a few minutes.

There was a smile in Bucky’s voice when he muttered, “stop distracting me, you asshole.”

“I’m trying to be  _nice_ ,” Steve protested, muffling his laughter with his free hand. That was his Bucky. Or, well. Not  _his_ Bucky. But Bucky. The- _not his_ \- Bucky that he was familiar with. “You don’t have to be a jerk about it, pal.”

Steve was fairly certain that Bucky rolled his eyes, even if he didn’t see it happen.

Bucky’s grasp on Steve’s hand tightened, suddenly. His next words came out abrupt and rushed as if he were trying to force them out before he decided that they were better left unspoken.

“When I was eighteen, I was approached one night by two men who sounded American. They said they wanted to have a threesome and-” Steve glanced up at Bucky, his heart clenching at the self-deprecating smile that the other man wore, “- um, that wasn’t too uncommon, so I agreed. I didn’t realize until afterward that something felt... wrong about it. And then I blacked out and I don’t remember anything until I woke up in a cargo hold with a group of a lot of women and a few other boys who were around my age.”

Steve blinked dumbly. “Wait... Um. What?”

Bucky, of all things, just rolled his eyes at Steve. “I’m pretty sure they drugged me, babe,” Bucky finally said, giving Steve a look that read  _keep up, pal_.

“Oh.” Steve swallowed and tried to pretend that he wasn’t freaking out just a little bit on the inside. “Right. Y-Yeah. Okay. So, um?”

“I was put in a, um... brothel? Here in D.C.,” Bucky said quietly. “It, um. They didn’t force anybody to actually... Take johns, you know. Surprisingly, I guess. But, um. I don’t know. I’d been doing it for years, so I figured why not, I guess?”

Steve stared, trying to find words. He opened his mouth, almost hesitantly, just to try and get something-  _anything_ \- out, but Bucky shushed him, shaking his head a bit.

“Just let me finish?” Bucky asked. “Please?”

Steve swallowed. “Um. Okay.”

Bucky nodded a few times. “Okay. Well. What I realized pretty quickly was that a lot of high profile people liked coming to that place. I think it was because almost everyone who worked there couldn’t speak English very well, and they figured that kept them safer? I don’t know.” Bucky shot a hesitant glance at him, then. “I’ve, um. I’ve had sex with a lot of politicians, Steve.”

“I mean.” Steve shrugged. “I’ve known a fair amount of them are sleazebags all my life, Buck.”

“Um.” Bucky shifted uncomfortably. “I’ve had sex with Harold Barton.”

Steve wasn’t proud of the fact that he froze up, but he did. It wasn’t anything to do with Bucky. Not really. It wasn’t like Bucky could have gotten himself out of that situation. Still, it was kind of really gross to think about- Yeah. Steve wasn’t going to go there.

Steve was startled out of his awkwardly frozen stare when he realized that Bucky looked near tears for the first time since this conversation had started.

Oh, fuck. Right.

“Hey.” Steve reached out and placed his hand on top of Bucky’s own. “Babe. He’s the fucking worst of them all. Just because he had everyone fooled for years doesn’t mean he’s a good person. I’m angry at him, not you, okay? He deserves everything that’s coming to him.”

Bucky nodded. Some of the nervousness faded from his expression.

Finally, he made an aborted kind of nervous motion and continued, “Um. Anyways. One day Pierce came into the place. He, um. I figured out later that he owns the place but... But all I knew then was that he was really important because everything stopped and people let him do whatever he wanted. Anyways. Um. He came in looking for... for someone to pretend to be his fiance and then his husband. He told Rumlow it was because he was trying to win over more liberal voters by appearing to be on their side. I don’t know. He was, um. He kind of just... Perused us all, you know? It made me feel disgusting. But, um. I think he kind of liked me the best and that was before they told him that I was one of the only ones who could speak English.”

Steve was fairly certain he was going to be sick. “So he picked you and, what, made you pretend to be engaged to him?”

“I was given an option,” Bucky said. He looked almost embarrassed, now. “I could either stay at the... brothel... Or, um. Or I could go live with him and get married to him. Back then, it hadn’t really been much of a choice. He had promised me that he’d take care of me, which I guess was more than I’d ever really known.” Steve was silent, mostly because he didn’t know what to say. Bucky looked twitchy. His hands made an aborted motion before slipping down to his sides. “Um. And before you ask, yes, I’ve had sex with him. It was... Part of his deal. But it was still better than... Then where I was. So, um. I said yes.”

“Buck,” Steve whispered quietly. He squeezes tightly at Bucky’s hand, clutching it to him as if to try and ground both himself and Bucky. He wasn’t really sure how well it was working, but it was better than nothing. “It’s okay.”

Bucky snorted. “I don’t think I really know what okay feels like, Steve. I don’t know if I’ve ever known, really.”

Steve swallowed. “Well... Well, that’s okay too,” he said quietly. “As long as you figure out a way to be happy and you get away from him, then that’s all that matters, right?”

For what felt like an eternity, Bucky didn’t even speak. He stared at Steve, his mouth hanging open just slightly, his eyes a little bit wide. The shock on his face was almost as amusing as it was surprising because Steve didn’t think he could ever recall seeing Bucky look at him like that. And, yet, there was something oddly adorable and heartwarming about it. Steve didn’t really know why.

Still, it made him want to wrap Bucky up in his arms and never let him go.

(Steve casually pretended for a few seconds that everything Bucky did didn’t make Steve want to never let go of him.)

“You’re so sweet,” Bucky said softly. “Thank you, Steve. For listening to me. And being so kind.”

Why the fuck was Bucky thanking  _him?_

“No,” Steve said. “Thank  _you_ , Buck. For... For telling me all that. I can’t imagine how hard that was.”

Bucky’s hand reached out and grabbed his own. Steve was pretty sure he felt his heart stop. This was new. This was… Whoa. Okay. Steve stared at their hands for a few seconds, his eyes wide, before he glanced back up at Bucky, hoping his face wasn’t as red as it felt like it was. Bucky didn’t seem to notice, though, because he was staring at the floor, a small smile on his face.

Okay, that was adorable.

(Fuck, he needed to stop doing that.)

Bucky finally looked up at him, his eyes wide and alight with his smile. He was so beautiful. He took Steve’s breath away.

Steve bit down on his tongue to stop himself from blurting out an  _I_ _love you_ or something equally dumb. He really, really didn’t need to go blurting that shit out right now. That was a conversation for another time. Or, well. Steve was still kind of banking on it being a conversation they were never going to have, but he was going to deal with things as they came, at this rate. It was easier that way.

They didn’t move, didn’t even look away from each other. As far as Steve was aware, they barely even allowed themselves to breathe. The moment was suspended in time, and Steve thought that if he was allowed to, he’d try to make it last forever. Everything was simpler here, staring into Bucky’s eyes and smiling back at him. Steve felt warm in a way he hadn’t in years, something soft and pleasant heating him up at the very core of his being.

Steve decided he kind of liked it.

He kind of liked it a lot, actually.

And, judging from the way Bucky had yet to move away from their position too, maybe Bucky kind of liked it too.

Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on Steve’s part.

“Steve,” Bucky finally whispered. “I... I think I should probably go soon.”

Steve blinked a few times. “What?” He repeated dumbly.

_But I came here to tell you how I feel about you_ rested on the tip of his tongue, but Steve bit the words back. There was no point to it, now. There were probably things Bucky needed to figure out before Steve started dumping even more things on him. It wouldn’t be fair of him to pile as many things onto Bucky as he possibly could.

Bucky smiled a bit. “I’ll- I’ll need to find a way to get away from him,” he said. “But until then I can’t let him suspect anything. So I should probably go back there soon.”

Steve swallowed down the words  _stay_ and  _I’m worried he’ll hurt you_ and, instead, he just nodded, his eyes closing as he ducked his head to face the floor. Instead, he just said, “okay, Buck.”

“Steve-” Bucky said, stopping once he’d reached the door. He turned around quickly to stare at Steve, and Steve- unable to do anything else- just stared back. He waited, unsure of what to do with himself. Finally, Bucky continued, “I’m so glad I met you.”

The sentiment was really quite sweet, but Steve couldn’t help but feel alarmed by the fact that the whole thing sounded like a goodbye.

“Bucky,” Steve said, swallowing down his nerves. Nothing about this moment was okay, Steve decided quickly. Absolutely nothing. “Don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

The words seemed to surprise Bucky- at least a little- because he bit down on a grin, laughter dancing in his eyes. “Guess you gotta keep my stupid safe for me then, pal.”

“That’s the dumbest line you’ve ever said,” Steve shot back, a huff of laughter leaving him before he could even help it. This didn’t really feel like a laughing moment, but it seemed that Steve couldn’t help himself. Bucky always made him laugh.

“I know.” Bucky’s smile broke free, then, and it was beautiful. _Bucky_ was beautiful. Steve could probably spend all day staring at him. He decided quickly that would probably be a bit creepy.

Steve took a few steps forward nonetheless, though, and he reached out to tuck a strand of Bucky’s hair behind his ear.

“Call or text me soon,” Bucky requested suddenly, his hand coming up to rest over Steve’s. “And if I don’t answer then please come look for me. Just... If that happens then be careful around Pierce, okay?”

“Please don’t say shit like that.” Steve felt his eyes grow wide. The pit of his stomach was launching a revolt within him. It was really, really unpleasant. “Don’t let that happen to yourself, okay? I don’t know what I’d do without you and I really don’t want to find out anytime soon.”

Bucky smiled and shook his head. He didn’t move his head fast enough to dislodge Steve’s hand from his cheek, nor did he even bother to move his hand away from atop Steve’s. There was an electric feeling in the air and Steve was fairly certain he was going to wind up losing his mind if they continued on like this.

“I have to go,” Bucky finally said. He took a step back, but he still didn’t pull his hand away from Steve’s. “Thank you for listening to me. It was... nice to have someone who was willing to do that. You’re a really good person, Steve.”

“You’re a good person too, Buck,” Steve said quietly. “You are.”

The smile on Bucky’s face was unbalanced, now, there was a weird sort of tone to it that made it look almost uncertain and confused.

“I’m going to try to be,” Bucky agreed finally.

Before Steve could even argue that Bucky already  _was_ a good person, he had pulled away and disappeared out the door of the solarium, and Steve couldn’t find the strength within him to chase after Bucky. Not right now. Bucky was going to be okay. He’d said he would.

And Steve was choosing to believe him, despite the awful feeling that had seemingly taken root in the pit of his stomach.

Yeah. This probably wasn’t one of his best ideas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! 
> 
> Feel free to comment if you'd like- comments feed my soul. You can also find me [here](buckleupsupersoldier.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you want to chat.


	7. True Love Waits

It was approximately three days later with no sign of contact from Bucky that Steve decided that, yes, letting Bucky go off after their conversation had been a really shitty idea. Steve never-  _ever_ \- should have let Bucky just leave like that and assumed he would be okay.

Steve had learned his lesson. Bucky had ideas that were almost as shitty as Steve’s own grand schemes.

It was kind of nice to know he wasn’t alone in that, at least.

However, Steve had promised Bucky that if he hadn’t heard from him in a few days then he would go look for him. In all reality, Steve wasn’t entirely sure how he was supposed to go about showing up at Alexander Pierce’s home and asking to see his fiance (now that he knew the truth behind their engagement, thinking about Bucky as  _Pierce’s fiance_  made Steve cringe all the more), but he’d decided it was best to just go for it.

Maybe.

Or maybe he’d wind up getting himself in a whole lot of shit.

It could really go either way, in the end.

To make matters worse, Steve had given his security detail of the morning- Phil was on a vacation, which meant the agents looking after him at the moment really didn’t know enough about Steve’s habits of slipping away at any given time- the slip. He figured that Pierce would appreciate the move, even though Steve knew that it would likely put him at a disadvantage.

Pierce’s house (more of a mansion, really) was so ostentatious that Steve could barely stand to look at it. He gathered up enough courage to knock hurriedly on the door, however, a large part of him hoping that Bucky would be the one to answer.

When Rumlow answered the door, all big muscle and arrogant asshole-ness, Steve realized that this whole thing wasn’t going to go his way.

Rumlow didn’t say much, just crossed his arms over his chest in an attempt to look as menacing as possible. Steve had never been the type of person to back down from a fight, so he raised his chin up a notch and stared right back.

“Can I help you?” Rumlow asked. He didn’t seem at all impressed by Steve’s display of confidence, but Steve wasn’t about to stand down. There was no way he was to let Brock Rumlow make him cower.

Steve cleared his throat, rocking back on his heels. “I’m looking for Bucky,” he said, keeping his voice as calm as possible. “So if you could just let me in that would be great.”

Rumlow shrugged, but he didn’t move away from the door. “James isn’t here right now,” he said. His eyes bored into Steve, sharp and beady and a little too blank for Steve’s liking. “I don’t know when he’ll be back. Sorry.”

“Huh.” Steve tilted his head to the side a bit. “See, that’s funny. I talked to Bucky a couple days ago and he told me that if he hadn’t called me or texted me at all in the days after that then he wanted me to come here and find him.”

“Did he?” Rumlow finally moved, his head tilted to the side. He leaned against the doorframe, his eyes narrowing. “That’s interesting.”

While Steve wasn’t entirely sure what  _t_ _ha_ _t_  meant, he figured it probably wasn’t anything good.

“I’m not going to leave until I talk to him,” Steve said. It was dumb, too stubborn, too ridiculously insistent, but it seemed to work- somehow- because Rumlow stepped out from the center of the doorframe and tilted his head to the side in a motion for Steve to come in. Hesitantly, he did just that, clutching at the strap of his bag so he had something to fiddle with to hide his nerves.

Rumlow motioned to a room across the hall that looked a bit like a study. “Wait here,” he ordered. “I’ll see what I can do.”

If Rumlow were anyone else, that was when Steve probably would have said, " _thank you"_ or something along those lines.

Instead, he moved into the study and didn’t say anything at all.

After a few long minutes of total silence, footsteps came from down the hallway. Steve pulled himself to his feet, watching carefully as Alexander Pierce made his way into the room, a pleasant smile on his face.

Steve’s nose wrinkled up in disgust. “Senator Pierce.”

“Steven,” Pierce said. His attempt at a charming smile plastered itself on his face, but he looked far too snake-like for Steve’s tastes. “It’s a pleasure to see you. I hear you’re looking for James?”

Steve shifted back an inch, nodding. “I am.”

“Hm.” Pierce clicked his tongue against his teeth, frowning just a bit. “Well that’s a shame. I was hoping you would be able to tell me where he is. I haven’t seen him at all the past few days, and I’m very worried. I know that you two are friends. I was hoping that you were here because you had some news about him.”

That lying  _b_ _astard_.

Steve bit at the inside of his cheek, glaring at Pierce. “With all due respect, Senator Pierce, I would appreciate it if you would stop lying to me.”

Clearly, Pierce hadn’t expected Steve to be so upfront about everything, if the look on his face was anything to go by. He didn’t necessarily look startled- his eyes only narrowed and his posture barely changed- but there was something dark in his expression that Steve knew meant he’d been caught in the middle of a lie and he didn’t intend to tell the truth anytime soon.

“I’m sorry,” Pierce said. A bland smiled wrote itself across his face. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Steve was glaring at Pierce before he could help it. “He told me,” Steve said. “Bucky. He told me the truth. About how you two got engaged. About what kind of a person you  _really_ are. So stop lying to me. I don’t have the time to listen to it.”

Pierce was silent, then, unmoving and blank. Steve stared back at him, feeling as if his heart was trying to pound its way out of his chest with the pace it was picking up at.

Finally, Pierce moved again. His smile dropped clean off his face and he simply tilted his head, arching an eyebrow at Steve. “I see,” he said. “What can I do for you then, Mr. Rogers?”

“Where’s Bucky?” Steve demanded.

Pierce scoffed, moving to his desk. “Typical. And so naive.”

Steve frowned. He watched as Pierce poured himself a glass of scotch and elected to not bring up the fact that it was barely past noon.

Instead, he took a step forward and asked, “What do you mean?”

“All you care about is your precious little  _l_ _ove_ ,” Pierce said, his voice dripping with amusement. “You do know what he is, right?”

A heavy weight settled on Steve’s heart, fear gripping him in a stranglehold. He fought through it enough to work out, “He’s a good person.”

“He’s a whore.” Pierce shrugged, all lazy and smug. Steve wanted nothing more than to punch him as hard as he possibly could. “He did tell you that, right? You’re here trying to bargain with me for used goods, Mr. Rogers. Don’t you think that’s a little pathetic?”

“Don’t you dare call him that,” Steve snapped. “You’re not allowed to call him things like that.”

His anger seemed to have little to no effect on Pierce, seeing as he laughed easily before taking a long drink of his scotch. Steve was burning with tension as he watched Pierce calmly swirl around his glass of amber liquid, a smug grin on his face.

“I can call him whatever I want.” Pierce raised his glass in Steve’s direction, almost as if toasting him. “I _own_ him.”

“You don’t  _own_  anyone. Bucky is his own person. And he’s a damn good one. And he doesn’t like you.”

Pierce just tutted again. He shook his head and made a face that almost seemed to be his equivalent of an eye-roll. It was a bit disturbing to see, but Steve didn’t say anything.

“He has nothing without me, Mr. Rogers. If I were to decide to abandon him, he’d either live on the streets here in the U.S. or have no choice but to go back to Romania and live on the streets  _there_. And, either way, he’d go back to doing the one thing he’s so... competent at as a source of income.” Pierce moved around his desk, stepping closer to Steve. Steve- even though his hands were shaking- didn’t bother to move away from Pierce. “So, yes, I do own him. And once he’s come to his senses, he’ll realize that his best option is to stay quiet and do what I tell him to.”

Steve forced himself to take a deep breath, his shoulders slowly relaxing ever so slightly. He didn’t take his eyes off of Pierce for even a second, though. He couldn’t. Someone had to prove to Pierce that not everyone was afraid of him.

Steve was willing to be that person.

“I won’t let you get away with this,” Steve said quietly. “I promise.”

Pierce just smiled at him, sickly sweet and that awful smugness slipping through. “Ah, Steven. You’re sadly mistaken if you think I haven’t already won.”

“You’ll never win.”

Pierce stepped back a step, then, laughing quietly to himself. Just as Steve was about to start yelling- because fuck it, he couldn’t bring himself to hold back anymore- a hand grabbed ahold of his jaw, and a rag was shoved in his face and held there. Steve started to struggle, kicking and shoving at the person behind him, but his efforts seemed futile.

“Never speak too soon, Steven,” Pierce said calmly, his face was carefully blank, void of all emotion. He took another drink of his scotch, and the smug light was back in his eyes. “I hope you deal well with isoflurane. It would be a shame to knock you out and have you wake up vomiting everywhere.”

Steve felt the panic build up in him as his limbs began to feel heavier and he stopped his struggling. A panicked noise caught in his throat, but he was slumping to the ground before he could even begin to make the sound, the image of Pierce’s smug expression the last thing he saw before everything went black.

_. . ._

He awoke again slowly, eyes opening to total darkness. A low groan escaped him as he rolled over onto his side. His stomach protested heavily at the movement, and a few awful retching noises escaped him as he fought against his stomach’s upwards battle.

 _Fuck_.

“Steve? Steve? Hey. Steve, are you okay?”

Was that-

“Bucky?” Steve croaked out. He looked up, but he wasn’t adjusted enough to the darkness to see much of anything, yet. “Is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me. What- What are you doing here?”

Steve retched again, fighting against the waves of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. He felt himself relax as soft hands were pressed gently against his forehead. It was comforting, and Steve supposed that was something he sorely needed right now. He leaned his weight into Bucky, sighing to himself.

“You didn’t call or text me,” Steve finally offered. “So I went to see Pierce.”

He still couldn’t see much of anything, but he could feel Bucky tense up against him, his shoulders sagging. “Steve. You didn’t.”

“I did,” Steve replied, completely unapologetic. “I would have done it even if you hadn’t said anything to me.”

His stomach settled, just ever so slightly, so Steve forced himself upright a bit, settling back against the wall behind him. Bucky didn’t say anything- he didn’t even need to, really- but the silence was still comforting, in a way. Steve suspected it was just because he knew Bucky was near, now, and was as safe as he could be.

Steve cleared his throat. “What did you even do, Buck?”

“I confronted him and Rumlow,” Bucky said, snorting with laughter. It bordered on hysterical, and Steve probably would have been concerned if Bucky hadn’t moved closer right afterward, curling into Steve’s side.

Steve huffed and wrapped an arm around Bucky’s shoulders. “You’re a fucking idiot, Barnes.”

“Not completely,” Bucky said quietly.

Steve pulled back a bit, his brow furrowing. “What does that mean?”

“It means that I recorded them,” Bucky said. He pressed back up to Steve’s side, his face smushed against Steve’s shoulder. His words were quiet and muffled, but Steve could still hear him loud and clear over the silence of the rest of the room. “I brought two recording devices with me and I let them think they destroyed my only copy of them talking about HYDRA when they busted up one of them. And they believed it, Steve. They fucking believed it because I have one with me  _right now_.”

“You...” Steve blinked slowly. He pressed his head against the side of Bucky’s taking in the scent of dirt and citrus and  _Bucky_. “You can’t be serious.”

Bucky snorted, the sound still muffled by Steve’s shoulder. “I’m completely serious.”

Steve was still trying to process that- honestly, he really didn’t know what to do there- so he moved onto the next subject, asking, “how long have they had you here?” quietly.

“A few days.” Steve felt Bucky shrug against his side. “Someone comes by and gives me food and water a couple times a day. I don’t know what they’re really waiting for, but I guess they’re waiting for something. If they wanted to they could have killed me already.”

“I think Pierce is waiting for you to give in,” Steve offered. “He kept telling me he owned you and that eventually you would come around and listen to him.”

“Nobody  _owns_  me,” Bucky spat quietly. Steve felt a warm feeling that was sort of pride and also sort of adoration clamor up in his chest.

(He was so in love.)

“I tried to tell him that.” Steve laughed, soft and exasperated. “He wouldn’t listen to me. Not that I thought he would.”

“And then, what? Rumlow knocked you out and they brought you here?”

Steve shrugged. “I assume so. I didn’t get a good look at the guy holding the rag, but I didn’t really think there was anyone else around.”

“Steve-” Bucky started, but Steve shook his head. Bucky’s words tapered off before he could even get much of them out.

“It’s okay,” Steve muttered. He ran a hand through his hair, not really caring that it was probably covered in dirt, at this point, and then let his hands fall back to press against the concrete of the floor. “I’m really fucking tired, though. And my stomach still hurts. Do you mind if we lie down for a minute?”

Nevertheless, Bucky nodded. He moved away from Steve just ever so slightly so that Steve could inch away from the wall and slump out on the ground. It didn’t take long before Bucky had followed him, curled up into as tight of a ball as he could manage with his feet tangled around one of Steve’s legs and his head resting on Steve’s chest.

Unable to resist, Steve reached out and wrapped an arm around Bucky’s waist, dragging them just a bit closer together. Bucky gave a soft huff- which was fucking adorable- and pressed about as close as he could get to Steve, humming to himself

Steve wasn’t exactly sure how long they stayed there, but it felt like an eternity of the two of them pressed against each other. For that span of time, nothing else really mattered. They were just two bodies, two people who were a little bit lost, tangled together in the most basic form of comfort.

It was a little bit beautiful.

It was also kind of cheesy, but Steve decided it was probably best to just ignore that.

“Steve,” Bucky muttered finally. “Steve, look at me.” He shifted in Steve’s arms, and Steve did what was asked of him, turning his face downwards to stare at the beautiful man curled into him.

Steve brushed a hand through Bucky’s hair. “What is it?”

“I-” Bucky bit down on his bottom lip, evidently thinking better of whatever he was about to say. He was silent, barely even breathing, before he finally offered, “I’m so sorry, Steve.”

“Um.” Steve paused, hesitating for just the slightest second before he opened his mouth. “What... What are you sorry for?”

An abortive motion, possibly an attempt at a shrug, was the only response Bucky gave him for a very long while. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry I got you involved in this, Steve. I wish... I wish that everything could have been different for us.”

Steve cleared his throat, staring up at the ceiling.

The feeling in his chest was clamoring between hot and cold so quickly that he couldn’t even process it, much less even breathe through it. Struggling to take in enough air for a full breath, Steve clenched his eyes shut, his fingers scraping against the cold concrete floor.

“You feel it too, then?” He asked.

Bucky laughed. Not that bright, tinkling, kind of fake laugh that he’d done on the night they’d first met, but a real, genuine chuckle with a hint of serenity to it.

“Steve.” Bucky sighed softly, but it wasn’t an angry sound. It was a simple exhalation of air, a puff that meant nothing and everything. “How could I not?”

And, helplessly, Steve smiled. He smiled so wide that the fluttery feeling in his chest battled against the ache in his cheeks. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I, uh.” Steve opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling. It was too dark to see much of anything, but he kind of suspected that the ceiling was as dirty as the floor they were lying on seemed to be. “I thought you said that it was difficult, Buck.”

Bucky’s shoulder moved against his chest, a gentle shrug that Steve felt within his bones. Then again, everything Bucky did impacted Steve far more than it actually ought to, so it wasn’t something that could be helped, really.

“It is.” Bucky pressed the whispered words into Steve’s neck, his lips pressing gently against the soft skin there. It was almost as if he wished to keep Steve’s skin completely untarnished, free from anything he perceived as dirty. “It always will be, I suspect. You. You made it less, though. Less difficult.”

Steve was fairly certain he couldn’t breathe. His chest felt tight with it. His mouth was dry, hanging open just the slightest bit from the shock coursing through his veins.

“I did?”

Hope blossomed through the question, an untamable emotion that Steve hadn’t even been aware he’d been feeling before it became present in his words. Bucky didn’t seem to mind, though, considering he only buried himself deeper into Steve’s arms, pressing himself tightly against his chest.

Steve felt Bucky’s smile against his skin and it warmed some place within him. They blazed with it, then, the light of their hope, of that smile, and it was enough, even in a disgusting, dark, cold room.

They were enough.

“You’re very easy to love, Steve Rogers.”

The fondness that clawed at Steve’s insides was too much and not enough all at once, so he curled himself into Bucky’s side, hoping that the other understood just what he was trying to say, even though Steve found himself incapable of forming words in that very second.

Finally, he cleared his throat and said, “I love you too, baby.”

Bucky shifted against him, muffling a soft noise into Steve’s shirt. Steve wasn’t entirely sure if it was a moan or laughter, and he was at a loss as to which one he would have preferred.

“I’m your baby now, huh?” Bucky’s voice was all gentle play, puffs of laughter drifting against Steve’s skin.

Steve swallowed.

“Um. Do you want to be?”

They were silent as Bucky considered this, trailing his fingers across Steve’s hipbone. “I think I rather like the sound of it,” he confirmed. “I suppose I’ve always enjoyed being pampered far too much. I hope you’re prepared for that.”

A snort of laughter burst from Steve before he could help it, but he muffled the tail ends of it by pressing his lips to Bucky’s hair.

“That’s not really a surprise,” Steve teased lightly. It was a bit odd how easily this came to them, even when they were trapped God knows where. Then again, talking with Bucky had always been easy. Far too easy. Steve might have found it worrisome if it were anyone else.

“You’re a dick.”

“But you love me.”

The words settled in his chest, then, and for a long second Steve just considered them. It was something he hadn’t ever expected to hear said out loud, but hearing the vibrations of those words echoed in the air did something that made his knees weak. There was a rightness to them that Steve didn’t think he’d ever be able to fully describe. Nonetheless, his fingers itched for his sketchpad or a canvas, just to see if he could do the feeling any justice at all.

Steve couldn’t see much of Bucky in the darkness, but from the way Bucky’s hands settled against his hips, he imagined the soft look in his eyes, the gentle smile tugging his lips upwards.

“Yes,” Bucky agreed. “I love you.”

For an eternity they simply laid there, pressed together in every way imaginable. Steve could feel Bucky’s limbs tangled within his own, could feel the trembling touch of Bucky’s soul, reaching out and clinging onto Steve with every part of itself that it could and, right then, it was enough. They were enough to keep the world alight, and nothing else mattered.

Steve could see it, what this feeling of closeness would look like on canvas.

It was beautiful.

“We need to get out of here.”

There was a tension in Bucky’s voice that broke the gentle stillness around them, but it was needed. As peaceful as the past few minutes had been, Steve was well aware that they were trapped in this room. And it wasn’t like Steve Rogers was just going to hunker down and let Pierce get away with everything he’d done.

There was no fucking way.

Steve nodded, sighing. “Yeah, I know. Um. Do you have any idea where we are?”

There was a tension in Bucky now, just underneath the skin, and Steve could feel it. It caused an ache to prick at his own jaw and he wondered how Bucky could stand it.

“I do.” Bucky lifted his head from Steve’s chest. He rustled around for a moment before he continued, “I’m pretty sure that this is where they kept me. Back when I first came here.”

Steve swallowed. “When you were...?”

A silence rested itself between them, long and heavy and awkward, before Bucky burst into bright peals of laughter. Steve was certain his face looked ridiculously bewildered even if it couldn’t be seen right now, and Bucky just laughed, seemingly unable to catch his breath.

“Steve,” Bucky finally forced past his giggles. “I was a prostitute. Still am, I guess. You know you’re allowed to say it, right? It’s okay.”

Steve was pretty sure his face was bright red by now. It was probably a good thing that the room was so dark that he could barely see anything. At the very least, the darkness was saving him from the humiliation of Bucky’s teasing. Or, well. Most of it anyways.

His words tripped out of him before he could even try to stop them. “I was just- um. I was- uh- well, I wasn’t- I wasn’t sure if it was something you’d find offensive or something?

Bucky snorted quietly, his fingers trailing along Steve’s sides. “I may have started doing it because I was desperate for money, but it was still my  _choice_ , Steve. You do know that, right? It's not... It isn’t something I’m ashamed of. Maybe it wouldn’t have been my first choice if I’d been given another one, but it wasn’t as if someone forced me to make the choice I did. You are allowed to talked about it. I won’t panic or something.”

The swell of affection Steve felt was kind of pointless, but there was no way Steve would ever fight against the feelings for Bucky that swirled around in him and clung to his insides at the most random and ridiculous of times. It might be inconvenient timing, yes, but that didn’t change the fact that Steve cared rather deeply for Bucky.

“You’re amazing,” Steve said.

A noise of surprise left Bucky, but he finally laughed, a soft, hesitant sort of noise. They stared at each other for a long few minutes, barely able to see each other through the darkness, but unable to let their eyes stray away from each other.

“Oh, no. I’m... I don’t think I am, Steve.”

“You are.” Steve’s voice left no room for argument and Bucky seemed to sense that because something about his center of gravity shifted just enough to place him closer to Steve. After a few minutes of silence Bucky moved, curling himself into Steve’s side for a split second before moving away again.

There was a smile in his voice when he said, “thank you, Steve.”

“You’re welcome, baby.”

The noise Bucky made then was entirely too appealing and did funny things to Steve’s stomach. He quickly decided that  _that_  was definitely something they should save to talk about at a later time. You know, when they weren’t locked up in the basement of what was apparently a brothel. Or something.

Steve still really wasn’t entirely clear on that.

“You okay over there, baby?” Steve asked, biting back on a smirk as Bucky made that noise again.

“You’re going to have to stop calling me that if you ever want to get out of here,” Bucky said, his voice was somehow unamused but filled with laughter all at the same time. Steve wasn’t sure how it was possible, but Bucky definitely made it work. And Steve  _definitely_  found it to be attractive. Very, very attractive.

“Oh?” Steve tried his best to sound innocent. “Is that a kink of yours or something?”

He was pretty sure Bucky was glaring at him, now. Steve shifted, biting back a laugh when he felt Bucky move a few steps away from him.

Oh, yeah, that was definitely a glare. And a pout.

“You have no idea, Rogers,” Bucky said. “You’ve barely even scratched the surface.”

Oh,  _fuck_. Okay. Well, apparently they were both playing this game now.

It was good to know that they could both still be assholes to each other, even in circumstances such as this. In a way, it was oddly comforting. Steve wasn’t going to question it. Not right now, at least.

“Oh?” Steve asked. He made sure his voice dropped an octave, just to see what Bucky would do.

Bucky, apparently, would allow himself to move into Steve’s arms- which, of course, Steve reached up and held him when Bucky curled into him. He couldn’t stop himself- and whisper quietly, “let’s get out of here and we can spend some more time exploring that, babe.”

Steve arched an eyebrow.

Bucky, because he was a little shit, just continued, “unless- hm. Do you want me to call you something other than babe?”

His goal was totally to make Steve blush.

Steve really didn’t want to admit that Bucky was winning.

“Shut up,” Steve grumbled. He moved a few steps back, mostly so he could focus on something other than the feeling of Bucky in his arms and the soft, clean, citrusy, musky smell that was Bucky Barnes. “Let’s get out of here, please.”

Bucky laughed. “Someone’s eager.”

Steve rolled his eyes.

“You’re an asshole,” Steve said shortly. Mostly just so Bucky didn’t hear the amusement in his voice. He wasn’t going to let Bucky win. Nope. “Do you have any idea where in the building we are or are we just going to try and wing it?”

Bucky hummed, his eyes darting briefly around the room they were settled in before he finally replied, “looks like I’m just going to wing it, pal.”

Steve groaned and ignored the offended look that the noise earned him. “Great.”

“You got any better ideas?”

He turned to look at Bucky then, and even though he could barely make him out in the darkness, the sight of Bucky’s cocked hip and hand propped up sassily at his side had Steve biting back a wide smile.

Steve was  _so in love_.

It was kind of gross, actually, now that he thought about it.

“Lead the way then, baby,” Steve said, his lips quirking upwards. “I’ll follow wherever you go.”

Bucky was definitely glaring at him now. “God, just shut up.”

“Make me,” Steve said challengingly, a bit of laughter just on the edge of his words.

Bucky didn’t even turn to look at him, but he said, “I thought I told you later, babe,” nonetheless.

Yeah. Steve was so, so in love.

Bucky made his way to the door, and after a few minutes of scuffling with it, it became obvious that he wasn’t going to be able to open it. Steve frowned.

“There aren't even any windows in here,” he said. “How the hell are we going to get out?”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Bucky protested. Steve snorted, but shut up all the same. “I think this is one of the rooms that they used to use for some of the more risque... party sort of events.”

Steve was going to question that, but he quickly decided that he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know what that meant.

Oh well. Another time.

“And?” Steve asked.

Bucky turned around to look at him, then. There was a smug little grin on his face that probably shouldn’t be attractive, but definitely-  _definitely_ \- was.

" _And_ ,” he said, his voice taking on a kind of sing-song quality, “if they haven’t changed the layout at all, then there’s definitely a separate hallway they would have us go in and out of to get in the room without causing a scene.”

Steve arched an eyebrow. “You really think it’s still there?”

“Well.” Bucky shrugged. “I’m not sure. I didn’t check because I didn’t want to alert them to anything, and I probably won’t be able to open it on my own anyways.  _But_ if it is still here then it’s probably our only shot at getting out of here anytime soon.”

“Okay,” Steve agreed. “Which way is it, then?”

Instead of answering verbally, Bucky reached out and grabbed ahold of Steve’s hand, dragging him towards the other side of the room. Steve’s stomach still did it’s dumb little fluttery dance at the sensation of Bucky’s hand all wrapped up in his own.

They came to a stop a few seconds later, settling in front of a wall. “Right here,” Bucky said. He moved their intertwined hands so that Steve’s own hand rested on top of the metal door.

Steve pulled his hand out of Bucky's- after a quick squeeze, of course- and pressed his hands against the door.

“It’s still got some give,” he said finally. “So I doubt they actually closed it up. It’s definitely going to take both of us pushing to get it open, though. I hope it doesn’t make too much noise. We don’t want anyone to come in here before we've gotten out."

Bucky shifted a bit, frowning. "Well. The last time they gave me food was right before they dropped you off here, so it's probably early evening. Which means that the place is pretty empty for another few hours."

"Okay," Steve said. He nodded. "Let's do it now, then."

They were quiet as they both adjusted their positions- and, really, one of the things Steve enjoyed the most about being around Bucky was that they didn't even need to say anything to each other to communicate.

"Ready?" Bucky asked.

Steve couldn’t help but grin, then. “More than,” he said.

They counted to three together and, at the end of the count, shoved up against the door, pushing with all their might.

For a few seconds, it seemed as if the door wasn’t going to give, but then they were both tumbling to the ground, a startled little yelp of a noise leaving him. Steve was pretty sure Bucky was laughing at him, but he chose to ignore it and instead focused his attention on the hall they were now in.

“Can you get us out of this place from here?” Steve asked.

Bucky hummed, his voice quiet and right by Steve’s ear. Finally, he offered, “yeah. It looks like they haven’t changed this hallway at all.”

“Fantastic,” Steve said brightly. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Bucky grabbed onto Steve’s hand again- Steve ignored the storm of fluttery feelings that took root in his stomach at the feeling of that simple touch- and steered the both of them further down the hallway. Steve followed along, silent and trusting.

“How are we going to get anywhere?” Bucky asked, pausing when they reached another door. He pushed the door open as Steve “Like... I know we’ll get out of the building and everything, but please tell me you’re not planning to walk to the FBI headquarters from here.”

“Oh.” Steve frowned,  squinting against the sunlight. He took a few seconds to take in every single aspect of Bucky’s face before he finally shrugged. “I... I guess I really hadn’t thought about it.”

" _Steve_ ,” Bucky said, his voice all exasperated and amused.

Steve shrugged, rolling his eyes. He reached into his jacket, searching a bit. When he realized that he had put on the correct jacket earlier that morning- or, well, he assumed it was the same day, at least. Hopefully his security detail wasn't freaking out too much. Whoops- he heaved a sigh of relief. Turning to Bucky, Steve asked, "Do you have something sharp?"

The question received a frown from Bucky, but he searched around nonetheless. After a few seconds, Bucky moved a few feet away towards the entrance of a nearby alley and picked up a shard of glass as carefully as possible.

"What do you need this for anyways?" Bucky asked, a frown marring his features.

Steve shot a grim- but still amused- smile in Bucky's direction. "My bodyguard has been looking after me since I was six," he told Bucky.

Bucky made a face, his nose scrunching up. "So?"

"So," Steve said through his laughter. He accepted the piece of glass as Bucky returned to his side and handed it to him. He slipped his jacket off of one shoulder and cut open the secret pocket that Phil had insisted be sewn into a few of his outer coats. "He knows me really fucking well, and he's well aware of the fact that I like to get myself into trouble as much as possibly can." 

The words didn't seem to clear anything up if Bucky's expression was to go by, so Steve just reached into the pocket and pulled out the emergency phone, unlocking it quickly. He tried his hardest not to laugh at the astonished look on Bucky's face. 

"What?" Bucky said. He still looked a little stunned.

Steve tapped at the minimal amount of apps on the phone, searching for the right one. "Phil really doesn't trust me. He's been requesting that they do this to my jackets ever since I lost my phone and disappeared for a day when I was thirteen because I wanted to go visit my friend Arnie." 

"You got something on there that can help us out, then, pal?"

After a few more annoyed taps, Steve finally found the app he was looking for. He glanced up at Bucky with a wink. “I guess we’re calling an Uber.”

_. . ._

Their Uber driver had looked a bit confused when he had picked the two of them outside of some seedy dive bar called Red Skull- the bar was a front for the operations and such of HYDRA (which was apparently the name of Pierce’s... shady business), Bucky had explained later on- especially considering how they must look right now, but had driven them to the FBI headquarters without asking any questions nonetheless.

Bucky had stood on the sidewalk, bouncing on his toes as Steve said a quick goodbye to the driver. They watched him go, taking a long moment to just stand still and process things.

“I can’t believe you actually called us a fucking Uber,” Bucky said finally. “That’s the most fucking ridiculous-”

Steve scoffed. “What the hell else was I going to do?”

Bucky shrugged, giving him an incredulous little glare that Steve kind of adored the fuck out of. It was cute. Sue him.

“Something less lame,” Bucky suggested as they made their way through the glass doors at the front of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. The whole place looked kind of sad and a little run-down, but it was still bustling with energy, so Steve nudged Bucky in the direction of the receptionist’s desk.

He arched an eyebrow, looking over at Bucky with the most exasperated glare he could manage. “Wow. You know what’s lamer than calling an Uber? Dying, Buck. _Dying_.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, poking at Steve’s chest. “Shut the fuck up, pal.”

They reached the receptionist's desk just as Bucky’s words left him. The receptionist- a woman with light blonde curls and intriguing grey eyes- seemed a little startled by the comment (as well as both of their appearances, probably), but she chose not to say anything about it and instead smiled politely at the two of them. “Hello. Welcome to the J. Edgar Hoover Building. Can I help you?”

Steve smiled politely. “Yes, actually. We need to speak to an FBI agent.”

The woman nodded, her polite smile souring into something a little bland. “Please write the agent’s name down and sit down over there until I call your name.”

“Um.” Steve blinked, slow and blank. His eyes narrowed. Bucky made a noise from his side that Steve interpreted as  _don’t do anything idiotic, please_ , and Steve huffed right back. “I think it’s kind of imperative that we speak to her now, actually.”

The woman tilted her head to the side, looking the slightest bit ticked off.  _Okay_. It wasn’t as if Steve had  _meant_  to annoy her. He just wanted to make sure that Natasha got ahold of Bucky’s tape as soon as possible. Steve had kind of had a long day and he really just wanted to go home and sleep. Maybe with Bucky curled up around him. That sounded nice. “Gentlemen, I’m going to have to ask you to-”

“We’re here to see Agent Romanov,” Steve burst out, turning to stare at the receptionist. He was sure they looked absolutely ridiculous- this put-together woman having a fucking staredown with both him and Bucky who probably looked like they hadn’t showered for days after a good mud-fight- but he was past the point of caring. “We have information about her case.”

“I’m still going to have to ask you to wait here,” the receptionist said calmly.

Steve blinked slowly, his eyes narrowing. His voice took on a bland and careful quality as he said, “Excuse me. But I need to talk to Agent Romanov immediately and when she hears that Steve Rogers and James Barnes are here to see her I’m sure she’ll be upset that we weren’t sent in right away.”

The receptionist flicked her hair over her shoulder in an awkward kind of way before finally reaching out and grabbing the phone in front of her. She spoke calmly, her eyes flickering between Steve and Bucky. Her face kind of explicitly read  _I don’t trust you_  and Steve was tempted to make a face in return. Bucky’s elbow to his gut stopped him, however.

Finally, the woman hung up the phone and tactfully offered, “Agent Romanov says to send you upstairs right now.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Steve said, all charming smiles and politeness now. He could practically feel Bucky rolling his eyes at him. “We’ll get out of your hair now.”

As they made their way up the stairs to the floor where the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch was located, Bucky leaned in close to Steve and whispered, “You’re such an asshole.”

“You’re not any better,” Steve protested, pointing a finger at Bucky. “And you know it.”

When they reached the landing, Steve was only a little bit surprised to see Natasha already standing there, her arms crossed over her chest. She took the two of them in- in all their dirty, hot mess looking glory- and her expression seemed to soften a bit. But only a bit. She was Natasha Romanov, after all. Soft wasn't really her style.

Finally, she asked, “what did you do now, Rogers?”

“Why do you always assume I did something dumb?” Steve asked, scrunching his nose up.

Natasha just raised her eyebrows, her eyes screaming  _u_ _nimpressed_  at him. Bucky snorted quietly from beside him, and Steve turned around to pout at him. That only seemed to make him laugh harder, though. Steve was a little bit offended.

“We have something you’re going to want to hear,” Steve finally said, glancing at Natasha. “It, uh. Well. Bucky should probably tell you about it.”

They stood there for a few minutes, Natasha carefully watching them before she seemed to decide something and nodded her head towards a room further down the hall. They followed with no protests and settled down when they reached the room. Steve sank into a chair while Bucky slumped across the table, a hand coming to rest sassily on his hip.

Natasha closed the door behind them and walked around to the other side of the table. “What do you have, then?”

“I have a recording,” Bucky said, pulling the recording device he’d used out of his pocket. He placed it on the table and didn’t even bother to look up. Natasha’s eyes widened, the look in them suddenly changing from startled to oddly pleased. “It’s Alexander Pierce and Brock Rumlow talking to me, so it’s legal. They, um. They incriminate themselves, as well as a few other people who currently work as government officials.”

“And... You’re just giving this to me,” Natasha observed, her eyes narrowing. “You don’t want anything from me?”

Bucky licked his lips. “I... I want to not be deported,” he said quietly. “That’s all I want.”

That definitely seemed to startled Natasha a bit, because her eyes did this odd flickering thing that Steve was pretty sure was confusion. He couldn’t really tell, though. Natasha was really- really,  _reall_ _y_ \- hard to read. “You can’t be deported. You’re here on a fiance visa.”

“It’s forged.” Bucky’s fingers were tapping against the table in an anxious sort of way now. He didn’t look up from the metal surface. Steve reached out and touched his arm, just once, to offer him any kind of comfort he could. “I’ve been living in the U.S.A. for the past three years. I was brought here illegally.”

Natasha’s eyes narrowed. “And what have you been doing for the past three years here, then?”

“It’s, um.” Bucky cleared his throat. “They say it in the recording. I don’t want to talk about it again. Or listen to it. But you should listen to it. Please.”

“Fine,” Natasha agreed. She grabbed the recording from where it was on the table. “You two stay in here. And try not to do anything else stupid, okay?”

Steve rolled his eyes. Bucky just nodded, even though he still refused to look up from the table. Natasha stared at the two of them for about a solid minute before she finally got up and left the room, the recording device still clutched in her hand.

“Buck. Hey, babe.” Steve reached out and poked at Bucky’s arm a bit, biting back a smile as Bucky rolled his eyes at him. “Are you okay?”

Something in Bucky’s eyes seemed to soften, and he reached out, tangling his fingers with Steve’s again. “I’m going to be okay,” Bucky said quietly. “I just... I don’t know.”

“Do you not want to go back to Romania?” Steve asked carefully. He wasn’t entirely sure what he should say now- all of it just seemed so enormous and overwhelming- but he figured this was a good place to start. “Why did you ask her not to be deported?”

Bucky was frowning at him, now, his eyes narrowed. “Well,” Bucky said. “Considering I’m in love with you, I kind of figured that being deported to Romania might put a bit of a damper on our relationship.”

“I would still date you, even if you were deported to Romania,” Steve said, biting back a smile. Bucky wrinkled his nose at him, probably preparing to call him out for being a sap, but Steve didn’t care. “But... You’re right, I guess. I think I’d like it better if you were still here with me.”

They sat in silence, then, just holding hands and breathing together. They didn’t really need words. Not now. Not about this. It was enough for them to just exist close to one another.  

Eventually, Natasha came back into the room. She was silent as she settled down across from them at the table. Finally, she offered, “you give me this recording and testify at my trial and I’ll get you a T visa.”

“You’re sure?” Bucky’s hands tightened, his knuckles going white. Steve almost winced at the intensity of Bucky’s grip, but he held back. “You mean it?”

Natasha nodded, her eyes serious and a little sad- which. That was a bit startling. She fiddled with the  recording device and offered, “A T-1 visa is for someone in your exact situation and you’ll be able to get one for sure with the people that this tape and your testimony will incriminate.”

“Okay,” Bucky said. His hand squeezed Steve’s a little tighter. Steve squeezed back and resisted the urge to kiss Bucky- and suddenly realized that he’d thought way too much about kissing Bucky even though he still had yet to do it- when Bucky whispered, “okay. Let’s do it.”

It wouldn’t be until later that Steve would finally kiss Bucky, settled on his bed with the sheets pulled up over their heads like they were eight years old and trying to fool their parents into thinking they were asleep.

It was ridiculous and it was perfect, and it would fill Steve with the hope that their future would feel just the same.

But, for now, Natasha just smiled, a hint of victory in her eyes and said, “let’s go get these bastards.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone! I'm so sorry about the wait on this chapter. I got back to college from break last month and life has been super hectic since then. I'm also trying to finish writing the last chapter right now so, hopefully, I'll have that one finished soon so I can post it.
> 
> Thank you all for reading!
> 
> Feel free to comment if you'd like- comments feed my soul. You can also find me [here](buckleupsupersoldier.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you want to chat.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so, so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this first chapter. 
> 
> Feel free to comment if you'd like-- comments feed my soul. You can also find me [heeeere](http://buckleupsupersoldier.tumblr.com/) on tumblr if you want to chat.


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